ZEV mandate: Burnham reportedly steps aside, leaving Louise Haigh to decide the 2030 EV target

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has reportedly stepped aside from the decision on the UK’s electric car sales targets, leaving First Secretary of State Louise Haigh to decide whether the 2030 goal of 80% stays or is cut. The Sunday Times first reported the move on 25 October 2026, and The Telegraph followed the same day with details of a three way split in Whitehall. For anyone buying a new car, the outcome will decide how hard carmakers must push electric models from 2027, and so how keenly they price them.

Nothing has been decided. A government spokesperson said the government is “united in its commitment” to the ZEV mandate and that “no decisions have been taken”. Officials are due to meet industry leaders this week to discuss the consultation, which closed on 23 October, two days before the reports and five days before Wednesday’s Budget.

Why has Andy Burnham stepped aside?

The reported reason is a possible conflict of interest. Burnham’s wife, Marie-France van Heel, recently left a senior role at the business behind Be.EV, the Manchester based charging network, and still advises its board. Reports differ on her exact title: The Telegraph describes her as former chief customer officer at Be.EV, while EV Powered and Business Matters say she was chief marketing officer of Iduna Infrastructure, Be.EV’s parent company.

Charging companies have a direct interest in the decision, because a lower target means fewer electric cars on the road to use their chargers. The Telegraph notes that as Mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham declared similar links and stepped away from related decisions. Downing Street declined to comment on the recusal, according to EV Powered and Business Matters.

No wrongdoing has been suggested. Stepping aside is the standard way ministers handle a possible conflict, and it means the call now sits with Haigh rather than with Number 10.

Who is Louise Haigh, and where has she stood before?

Louise Haigh is First Secretary of State. She is no stranger to this policy: as Transport Secretary in November 2024, she said the mandate would not be weakened but that “flexibilities” could be introduced to help manufacturers comply, as ElectricDrives reported at the time. That was nearly two years ago and in a different job, so it is context rather than a guide to what she will decide now. No timetable for her decision has been reported.

What is each department reported to want?

According to The Telegraph, EV Powered and Business Matters, ministers are split three ways. These are anonymous briefings, not government policy.

Department	Reported position for 2030	Reported reasoning
Treasury	Cut to 50%	Needed to attract overseas carmakers’ investment
Business and Trade (Jonathan Reynolds)	Cut to 50%	Key to protecting automotive jobs
Transport (Heidi Alexander)	About 60%	Department reportedly sees carmakers’ complaints as overblown
Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)	Keep 80%	No change to the mandate

The consultation itself set out four routes for cars: cut 2030 to 70%, 60% or 50%, or keep 80% with flexibilities extended to 2034. No department has been reported as backing 70%. Our ZEV mandate consultation explainer sets out each pathway in detail.

What would 50%, 60% or 80% mean for buyers?

To put the options in numbers, we have applied each target to a market the size of 2025’s, when 2,020,520 new cars were registered and 473,348 of them were battery electric, according to SMMT figures. The 2030 market could be bigger or smaller, so treat these as illustrations, not forecasts.

2030 target	Electric cars needed a year	Times 2025’s EV sales	Petrol, hybrid and other new cars allowed	Who reportedly backs it
80% (current law)	About 1.62 million	3.4	About 404,000	Energy department
70%	About 1.41 million	3.0	About 606,000	No department reported
60%	About 1.21 million	2.6	About 808,000	Transport department
50%	About 1.01 million	2.1	About 1.01 million	Treasury and Business

EV Compared calculations: each target multiplied by 2,020,520 cars, compared with 473,348 battery electric registrations in 2025.

The gap between the top and bottom options is about 606,000 electric cars a year. At 80%, carmakers would have to sell well over three times as many EVs as in 2025. At 50%, they would need to roughly double them, and one new car in two could still be a petrol car or a hybrid.

For buyers, the practical difference is pressure. The further a brand is from its target, the more it discounts EVs, cuts finance rates and steers customers away from petrol versions. A 50% target would remove much of that pressure from 2027 onwards; 80% would keep it high. Whatever is chosen for 2030, the 2035 requirement for all new cars to be zero emission is not under review, so a lower target in 2030 means a steeper climb afterwards.

How much have carmakers spent on EV discounts?

Carmakers say the mandate cost them £10bn in its first two years, largely through discounts on electric cars used to avoid fines of £12,000 per car, The Telegraph reports, citing the SMMT. That penalty was cut from £15,000 in a package announced in April 2025, according to Electrical Review.

To give that a scale, we divided the £10bn by the battery electric cars registered over the same two years: 381,970 in 2024, according to SMMT figures reported by Green Fleet, and 473,348 in 2025. That is 855,318 cars, or about £11,700 per electric car. It is a crude average: some EVs sold with little or no discount and others with much more, and the £10bn is the industry’s own figure. But it explains why EV leases and cash prices have looked so good, and why carmakers are lobbying hard for a lower target.

SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said demand is growing but remains well short of the mandated targets, and that manufacturers cannot keep covering the shortfall through discounting, according to Business Matters.

Will Q4 EV discounts change because of this?

Not for cars registered this year. The review does not touch the 2026 target of 33%, and battery electric cars took 26.2% of the market from January to September, according to the SMMT. It says about 265,000 more electric cars must be registered in October, November and December to reach 33%.

That gap is why we expect strong EV offers to continue until 31 December, as explained in our report on the ZEV mandate gap and year end discounts. If you are buying now:

• Focus on cars that can be registered before 31 December. Stock cars give you the most bargaining power, because they count towards this year’s figures.
• Do not wait for the decision to haggle. A softer target would apply from 2027 at the earliest, so it does not weaken a dealer’s need to sell EVs this quarter.
• If your car arrives in 2027, the deal reflects 2027 pressures, which are exactly what is being decided. Get the price and finance terms fixed in writing when you order.
• Check the Electric Car Grant. Eligible models can still get up to £3,750 off, and our report on how long the grant’s funding will last covers the outlook.

Who is lobbying on each side?

Carmakers and their trade bodies want lower targets. Toyota has warned it could sell fewer cars in the UK and declined to guarantee its Burnaston plant unless the 2030 target falls to 50%, as we reported in Toyota’s warning. EV Powered notes that some UK plants, including those run by Nissan, Toyota and Mini, are running below capacity.

On the other side, charging companies have threatened to pull £2bn of investment, around 50,000 chargers, if the government backtracks, according to The Telegraph. Their trade body ChargeUK says a weaker mandate would halve operators’ investment over five years, and the trade body BEAMA puts the cost to the Treasury in lost VAT at up to £16.7bn. We cover those figures in our report on what a weaker mandate could cost. EV Powered also reports that Polestar UK has urged the government not to soften the targets.

What happens next?

Officials from the transport, business and energy departments are due to meet industry leaders this week to discuss the consultation results, according to EV Powered and The Telegraph. The GOV.UK consultation page says responses are being analysed and the outcome will be published “soon”, and the government has committed to completing its review by early 2027.

The Budget on Wednesday 28 October is not expected to settle the target, but it could touch on the money around it, from the Electric Car Grant to VAT on public charging. Our Autumn Budget 2026 preview lists what drivers and the industry are asking for.

Date	What happens
23 October 2026	Consultation closed
25 October 2026	Reports that Burnham has stepped aside and Haigh will decide
Week of 26 October 2026	Officials due to meet industry leaders
28 October 2026	Autumn Budget
By early 2027	Government due to complete the review

The government has also restated two fixed points: the end of new petrol and diesel only car sales in 2030, and all new cars and vans being zero emission by 2035.

Our view

Who takes the decision matters less to buyers than what is decided, and on that nothing is settled. The reported range runs from leaving the target at 80% to cutting it to 50%, a difference of about 600,000 electric cars a year on today’s market size. A cut would most likely mean smaller mandate driven discounts from 2027, more petrol and hybrid choice until the 2030s, and a harder climb to 2035.

For now, this year’s target is unchanged and carmakers are well short of it. If you want an electric car and can take one registered before Christmas, the pressure is on the seller, not on you. Our guide to how the ZEV mandate works explains the credits and penalties, and we will report the decision when it is published.