Lobby: Leadsom has her work cut out at Defra

Leadsom’s rise has been meteoric, but she has some difficult nuts to crack at Defra if she is to rise any further.

Andrea Leadsom’s rapid political rise fell short of the top job but saw her gain a seat in the cabinet and the head office at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

The South Northamptonshire MP withdrew her challenge to Theresa May to become prime minister, and now faces a raft of challenges at Defra, many of which include the fallout from Brexit, of which Leadsom was a high profile supporter.

With a new appointment come the inevitable concerns over the appointee’s suitability, and Leadsom attracted a great deal of criticism after being named as the replacement for Liz Truss.

The former City banker and mother of three has been accused of being relatively unknown in the wider political sphere before the EU referendum campaign, and for lacking the top-level political experience needed to take on a cabinet role.

The chairman of the environmental thinktank E3G, Tom Burke, has led the attacks on the new Defra secretary. “It was a very bad day for the environment when Leadsom was appointed secretary of state. She has no instincts for it and no knowledge of it,” he said.

This view is given weight by Leadsom’s own admission that her first question when she was appointed as energy minister was whether climate change was real or not, although she says she is now “completely persuaded” that it is.

Burke also warned Leadsom that Defra will become a difficult department to run as the UK seeks to untangle itself from European legislation, 80 per cent of which has been set and is regulated via the EU. These include the bathing water directive, drinking water directing and water quality directives – all of which will need UK equivalents to be developed.

“Defra is going to be at the front in terms of broken promises,” he said.

One of Leadsom’s predecessors as environment secretary, Conservative Caroline Spelman, has urged the new secretary of state to engage with Defra’s partner organisations “as well as our international colleagues” in the EU to help her gain an understanding of the role and what is required.

Elsewhere in Defra, Thérèse Coffey and Lord Gardiner of Kimble have also been appointed, and join long-standing farming minister George Eustice as part of a well respected junior ministerial team. 

The new look department, which escaped a major overhaul in the cabinet and departmental reshuffle, has got a number of key challenges to deal with.

Top among them will be the development and signing off of the non-domestic water retail market, with shadow operation due to start in October and the full go-live date in April.

Added to this in the review and assessment of the domestic retail market, the development of the long-awaited and much needed abstraction reforms, the outcome of the Letwin review into flooding, the development of resilience in the sector, promoting sustainable urban drainage, and the handling of the environmental impacts and permitting for fracking.

Successful handling of all of these issues, as well as the split from the EU, will not only provide the water sector with confidence and stability going forward, but it will also help Leadsom continue her rapid political rise.