{"id":2633,"date":"2023-02-14T11:02:10","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T11:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/sussexenergygroup\/?p=2633"},"modified":"2024-01-26T13:47:33","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T13:47:33","slug":"a-closer-look-at-the-uk-governments-big-climate-and-energy-reshuffle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/sussexenergygroup\/2023\/02\/14\/a-closer-look-at-the-uk-governments-big-climate-and-energy-reshuffle\/","title":{"rendered":"A closer look at the UK government’s big climate and energy reshuffle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As covered in last week’s blog<\/a>, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has reshuffled his cabinet and split the business energy and industrial strategy department in two<\/a>. What does all this mean? Is it window dressing and intra-government manoeuvring<\/a> or a necessary reset? Marc Hudson takes a deep dive. <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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BEIS <\/a>is dead! Long live the EsNZ! In an announcement last week, Rishi Sunak, currently the UK Prime Minister, reshuffled his cabinet and also rearranged some big government departments<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The big item, for energy and climate people, is that the Business Energy and Industrial Strategy department \u2013 created by Theresa May when she became prime minister in 2016 \u2013 was no more. BEIS had been created by an amalgamation of the Department of Energy and Climate Change<\/a> (set up by the Brown government in the heady pre-Copenhagen climate talk days, during that the cautious but intoxicating  optimism of the Climate Change Act) and the Department of Business Innovation and Skills which was a successor to the long lived Department of Trade and Industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DECC and BIS had collaborated and co-ordinated on a couple of interesting projects, including \u201croad maps\u201d (without drivers, or fuel or vehicles \u2013 just the \u2018map\u2019) at what UK industry could do around industrial decarbonisation and energy efficiency<\/a> (answer \u2013 a bit of process changing, fuel switching and a lot of carbon capture and storage).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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BEIS’ never-ending turf war with the Treasury<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the time of BEIS\u2019 creation, environmentalists feared that the environment and climate change aspects would be lost within a mega department. This proved not to be the case under the leadership of Greg Clark<\/a> and with ministers like Nick Hurd and Claire Perry. Issues like carbon capture and storage were picked out of the circular file where Cameron and Osborn had tossed them, and \u2013 within the broader industrial strategy  \u2013 sort of<\/em> prospered however (see this blog on Sussex Energy Group\u2019s site <\/a>for the CCS  story).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But BEIS had already lost a part of the never-ending turf war with the Treasury when its industrial strategy was replaced with a more anodyne Build Back Better document last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s of course too early to tell what all this means, though wags will doubtless talk about re-arranging the DECC-chairs. It will depend on many other factors. No doubt across Whitehall and Westminster (unmitigated) midnight oil is being burnt by politicians, trade associations, ambitious (and\/or exhausted) civil servants, and lobbying companies, all of them trying to figure out the new organigrams <\/a>and understand where old friends and enemies now sit, how that might affect their particular personal and sectoral interests and which levers and buttons now need pushing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Joined-up thinking is still in short supply<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Whether policymaking and decisions about implementing existing policies suffer a short pause or longer turbulence remains to be seen. There have recently been repeated warnings<\/a> (more like pleadings in their tone, tbh) about the need for quicker joined up thinking and doing, from outgoing MP Chris Skidmore<\/a>, chair of a net zero review. And just last week five energy associations (including Renewables UK and the Nuclear Industry Association) wrote a \u201cplease help\u201d letter to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt (see a very good account<\/a> by journalist Sarah George, writing for the indispensable edie.net).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analyst Christian Spencer captured the mood well when he wrote on Twitter: <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As machinery of government changes go, this is not a bad set of rejigging. What matters more, of course is what you do with it, but all of these seem reasonable and some desirable. Also interesting how much this harks back to a previous set of depts, too: DTI and DECC both back. pic.twitter.com\/VxdY29qLWZ<\/a><\/p>— Christian Spence (@ChristianSpence) February 7, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote>