Recognising the significant impact rising energy prices have had on households across the UK as a result of Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, and the need to secure more energy from domestic nuclear and renewable sources as the country moves to net zero, the new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has been tasked with ‘securing the UK’s long-term energy supply, bringing down bills and halving inflation’. It will be led by Grant Shapps as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. Formerly Business and Energy Secretary, leading the now broken up Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Shapps also previously served as Transport Minister under Boris Johnson’s government.

The announcement delivers on Sunak’s promise last summer, while campaigning for the job as Prime Minister, to re-establish a standalone Department for Energy.

A dedicated Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has also been created as well as a combined Department for Business and Trade, and a re-focused Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Commenting on the creation of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, EI External Affairs Director Nick Turton FEI, who was part of the team that set up the previous Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in 2008, said: ‘Energy security and net zero is the right mandate for our times. The big question is whether this is simply moving deckchairs around or putting real clout where it’s needed. At its inception, DECC was insurgent and, under its various Secretaries of State, managed to use its political capital to challenge colleagues around the Cabinet table.’

He continued: ‘Success for the new Department in terms of energy security and the transition to net zero will be heavily dependent on decisions taken elsewhere in Whitehall, and also in devolved and local levels of government. It needs to wield influence over Treasury spending, planning and building policy, farming and land use – and of course back into trade and industry policy.’

Meanwhile, stating that it had been ‘government policy and underinvestment that has been holding back real action on the climate and energy crises, not the departments or ministers in place’, Dr Doug Parr, Director of Policy at environmental campaigner Greenpeace UK, called for the new-look Department for Energy to be ‘given the freedom and funding to rapidly scale up renewable energy production – both offshore and on – to shore up domestic supply, as well as roll out a nationwide scheme to insulate the tens of millions of energy-wasting homes across the country’.