Energy and climate change should be made one of the ‘great offices of state’ to increase the focus on these issues across government, the last secretary of state to hold the portfolio has suggested.
After delivering a keynote speech at a net zero conference organised by the Institute for Government thinktank, Amber Rudd said her old Department for Energy and Climate Change had lacked clout across Whitehall.
“The status of individual department matters enormously for whether you can influence other departments to take seriously your problems. The trouble with energy and climate is that it was quite far down the pecking order.”
She said a solution could be to give energy and climate change the same status as the so-called great offices of state, traditionally the prime minister, chancellor of the exchequer and the foreign and homes secretaries.
Rudd served as home secretary in Theresa May’s government following the DECC’s abolition in 2016. Since then, energy and climate change has been a minister of state portfolio in the BEIS department.
“You have four great offices of state: let’s have five, invest energy and climate change with the authority of a great office of state, give it to a really senior Cabinet minister and then you will see it delivered effectively.”
However, Rudd said climate change issues currently have a strong profile across government because of the importance placed by Boris Johnson on the upcoming UN COP 26 climate change conference in Glasgow.
“It (COP) is essential for Boris Johnson as the convenor of a big event and to show Britain on the big stage. In terms of buy-in from Cabinet, it’s there.”
She also expressed confidence that Alok Sharma can make a “great success” of the COP president, which has been his full-time role since stepping down as business and energy secretary last month.
“He has the prime minister’s ear and has strong personal commitment to it.”
But the COP itself will be on a smaller scale than previous annual UN climate change conferences, Rudd said: “The likely outcome is that a reduced conference will take place where countries will bring much smaller negotiating teams.
“I would expect that the actual conference will have team leaders, country leaders and much reduced negotiation teams so that people can continue it in a socially distanced way.”
But she said the presence of smaller teams may help the negotiating process, although there will be added pressure to secure greater agreement on issues before the COP.
In addition, Rudd expressed concern that the event itself may be diminished by the likely absence of the business, civil society and local government heads whose attendance at Paris had upped pressure on national leaders to strike a deal.
She also said the government could do more to protect poorer customers from the upfront costs of investment in renewable energy.
“We have to make sure that we manage electricity bills so that the costs of those are progressive.
“The government went some way to address that but not enough, there will be some big upfront costs but we have to do it in a way that doesn’t increase the costs on the lowest paid.”