UK’s DECC scrapped as single-entity structure

The UK’s new Prime Minister Theresa May has scrapped the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in her Cabinet reshuffle. DECC policy areas will now move to the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The energy portfolio will now be led by former Communities Secretary Greg Clark.

A DECC spokesman confirmed to Biofuels International that DECC policy areas will be shifting to the new department which includes energy and industrial strategy.

Clark has some experience having served as shadow DECC Secretary between 2008 and 2010.

It is not clear whether the UK energy industry welcomes the move. However, waste experts such as Peter Jones have said that UK government departments like DECC and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) should work together to form clear policies.

In a House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, which took place in 2014, he asserted that there had been an uncoordinated framework in the UK. He said different government departments – including BIS, Defra, the Department for Communities and Local Government  (DCLG)and the DECC –had responsibilities for different areas of the waste and energy sector, which was causing “conflicting economic signals” and is a “paralysis” which is “taking us nowhere”.

Speaking about the news that DECC was to be scrapped, former DECC Secretary and Labour Party leader Ed Miliband tweeted: “DECC abolition just plain stupid. Climate not even mentioned in new dept. title. Matters because departments shape priorities (and) shape outcomes.”

Amber Rudd, who had served as Energy Secretary since the general election, was promoted to the Home Office brief yesterday (13 July).

Earlier today, Andrea Leadsom was moved into the position of Environment Secretary, replacing Liz Truss who is the new Justice Secretary.

The former Energy Minster began the day answering DECC questions in the Commons in the absence of a senior figure.

Rudd faced controversy when she was Energy Secretary. She faced accusations of being anti-green amid cuts to renewables subsidies and the last-minute axing of £1billion funding for carbon capture and storage development.