Global Feedback Limited, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs & Anor

The Court of Appeal held that section 13 of the Climate Change Act 2008, which imposes a duty on "the Secretary of State to prepare such proposals and policies as the Secretary of State considers will enable the carbon budgets that have been set under this Act to be met", did not apply to the preparation and adoption of the Government's Food Strategy published by DEFRA on 13 June 2022. The court construed Part 1 of the Act as creating an economy‑wide, continuing duty to be discharged by the Secretary of State charged with setting and ensuring compliance with carbon budgets (the Secretary of State for Energy, Security and Net Zero / previously SSBEIS), not by each departmental Secretary of State in respect of sectoral strategies.

Accordingly, DEFRA's Food Strategy was not itself a "proposal or policy" within the meaning of section 13 and its preparation did not engage the reporting duty in section 14. The court also held that there is no general statutory duty to give the Climate Change Committee's advice "significant weight" or to provide cogent reasons for departing from it in relation to section 13 unless Parliament has expressly required consultation or account to be taken in the specific statutory provision; where Parliament has required it (for example in sections 7 and 9) it is explicit.

The claimant, Global Feedback Ltd, brought judicial review proceedings seeking a declaration that DEFRA's Food Strategy (13 June 2022) was unlawful and an order requiring publication of a lawful food strategy. The claim originally raised three grounds but the appeal to the Court of Appeal was limited to two issues: (1) whether the Food Strategy was a "proposal or policy" for the purposes of section 13 of the Climate Change Act 2008 so as to engage the Secretary of State's duty to prepare proposals and policies to enable carbon budgets to be met, and (2) if so, whether the adopting Secretary of State was required to give significant weight to the Climate Change Committee's advice and to give cogent reasons for any departure from that advice.

The case was an application for judicial review retained to the Court of Appeal under CPR r.52.8(6) after permission hearings in the Administrative Court. The court set out the statutory framework in Part 1 of the Climate Change Act (including sections 1, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 14) and the role of the Committee on Climate Change (Part 2). The Net Zero Strategy (19 October 2021) and the earlier decision in Friends of the Earth (Holgate J.) were canvassed as background, and the court accepted Holgate J.'s exposition of the nature of the section 13 duty when dealing with the Net Zero Strategy.

The Court of Appeal reasoned that: (i) the duties in Part 1, taken together, envisage a single Secretary of State responsible for setting and ensuring compliance with carbon budgets and for reporting to Parliament under section 14; (ii) section 13 requires an economy‑wide, strategic judgment and is a continuing duty of that national Secretary of State; (iii) other departments may prepare policies of their own that assist meeting carbon budgets, but that does not mean they are discharging the section 13 duty; (iv) the Food Strategy was DEFRA's departmental strategy and was not itself a preparation of proposals and policies by the Secretary of State charged with the statutory functions under Part 1; and (v) there is no general statutory obligation to give the Climate Change Committee's advice "significant weight" or to give cogent reasons for departing from it in relation to section 13 unless the statute expressly requires consultation or account to be taken (and Parliament did so expressly elsewhere in the Act where intended).

The court therefore dismissed the claim. The judgment records that the court also considered the second issue (on the CCC's advice) and would have answered it in the negative even if the first issue had been decided for the claimant.

The claim for judicial review is dismissed. The court held that the duty in section 13 of the Climate Change Act 2008 is an economy‑wide, continuing duty to be discharged by the Secretary of State responsible for setting and ensuring compliance with carbon budgets (the Secretary of State for Energy, Security and Net Zero / previously SSBEIS). The Food Strategy prepared by DEFRA did not itself fall within the section 13 duty and section 14 reporting duty. Further, there is no general statutory obligation to give the Climate Change Committee's advice "significant weight" or to give cogent reasons for departing from it in relation to section 13 unless the statute expressly requires so.

The claim for judicial review was issued in the Administrative Court (permission refused on the papers by Sir Ross Cranston on 13 October 2022 and by Lang J at the renewed hearing on 6 December 2022, reported as [2022] EWHC 3269 (Admin)). Permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal was later granted under CPR r.52.8 and the claim was retained in the Court of Appeal (hearing on 6 November 2023). Judgment of the Court of Appeal delivered 21 December 2023 ([2023] EWCA Civ 1549). The judgment also considered and adopted reasoning in the earlier challenge to the Net Zero Strategy in Friends of the Earth ([2022] EWHC 1841 (Admin)).