Leader: Decc is skating on thin ice

Hard times for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc). The unprecedented intervention of a UN grandee this week over the government’s swingeing cuts to renewables subsidies is just the latest blow in a series of knocks to a department that is ­looking increasingly vulnerable. The UN’s chief environment scientist, ­professor Jacquie McGlade, broke international protocol when she publicly questioned the UK’s cuts in renewables subsidies, highlighting the country’s apparent shift away from clean energy just as the rest of the world moves towards it. You expect the industries affected to howl at the cuts, but this is something altogether more concerning, and suggests there could be red faces in the UK camp at the UN’s summit on climate change in Paris from 30 November.

Meanwhile, the department’s flagship policy, Electricity Market Reform (EMR), is also looking shaky. According to exclusive analysis from PA Consulting we publish this week on page 19, the glut of power station closures next spring will leave National Grid having to produce 6GW of capacity through the supplemental balancing reserve next year to protect margins – more than twice the 2.4GW it procured this year. PA’s conclusion? “EMR is failing”.

It’s not just renewables that face death by a thousand cuts. Decc itself has fallen victim to the Treasury’s knife, with budget cuts of up to 90 per cent leaving its remaining staff stretched to the limit and rumours that the department is struggling to deliver its basic workload, let alone any extras. Meanwhile, staff are having to walk the tightrope between the Treasury, the department’s committed policies and stakeholder relationships, and the politics of a Conservative government that campaigned on ending onshore wind and has the awkward squad of its own right wing to appease. This makes ­conversations about subsidies difficult, to say the least.

It’s not hard to understand why Decc ministers were so thin on the ground at the recent Conservative party conference. In their absence, the old whispers that the department itself could be for the chop resurfaced, with the idea of winding energy into the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (Bis) and climate change into the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) touted as a sure-fire money saver.

Apparently, Decc is due to clarify its policy ahead of Paris; for its own sake as well as the industry’s, that clarity cannot come a moment too soon.