Energy and Climate Change Committee to disband in October

By Tom Grimwood

Responsibility for scrutinising energy and climate change policy will fall to what is currently the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee. It will be renamed the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee.

“Over the next few weeks we look forward to continuing our work with stakeholders to bring our current work programme to a conclusion,” tweeted ECCC.

The change follows the government’s decision in mid-July to scrap the Department of Energy and Climate Change and fold it into what was the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) – now called the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. 

Labour MP for Hartlepool and former shadow business minister Iain Wright will chair the revamped committee. “Delighted to be chairing this,” he tweeted. “Determined that energy and climate change will be front and centre of committee work.”

On social media a number of industry figures congratulated ECCC for the work it had done. However, many also raised fears that energy and climate change policy could end up playing second fiddle to business policy.