New government faces same old pressures

Do Boris Johnson’s wholesale cabinet changes signal an end to the policy logjam? David Blackman reports.

Temperatures were running high at Westminster last Thursday during Boris Johnson’s first House of Commons appearance as prime minister.

And while the opening clash between Johnson and his opposite number, Jeremy Corbyn, was causing the political thermometer to soar, MPs were also contending with the same sweltering conditions that resulted in record temperatures.

It was hardly surprising, therefore, that the topic of climate change was on MPs’ minds as the new prime minister was quizzed repeatedly on the subject during the hour-and-a-half session on the rebooted government’s priorities.

Johnson insisted the drive to tackle climate change was “absolutely core” to his government’s programme.

Even though some observers have reservations about previous stances adopted by Johnson on the science of climate change, his former backbench colleague Tim Yeo reckons this reflects his approach to the issue. He says: “Boris sees the green agenda as a part of the modern world.”

The new PM was speaking within 24 hours of undertaking a dramatic government reshuffle, which was widely described as a “bloodbath” with no fewer than 17 cabinet ministers leaving the government. They included Greg Clark, secretary of state at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and Claire Perry, energy minister.

The energy sector will at least be dealing with a known quantity with the new business secretary, Andrea Leadsom. She held the energy portfolio during the dying days of David Cameron’s government.

The South Northamptonshire MP was energy minister at Decc (the Department of Energy and Climate Change) for just over a year before the ministry was dismembered when Theresa May became prime minister.

So, Leadsom has some experience of the brief. “It will save a little bit of time, but only if she broadly buys into the agenda that Greg [Clark] and Claire [Perry] adopted,” says Yeo, who is a former chairman of the House of Commons energy and climate change select committee.

No green friend

Alan Whitehead, who was Leadsom’s opposite number, acknowledges she had a “good grasp” of the brief. A bigger concern, says Labour’s shadow energy spokesman, is the policies that Leadsom implemented while in post.

It was on her watch that the government cut subsidies for solar feed-in tariffs and ended support for onshore wind developments. Decc gave local authorities the planning powers to block wind farms and excluded onshore wind and solar from the contracts for difference regime.

“In her previous guise as energy minister, her principal contribution was the ban on onshore wind and backing fracking,” says Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK.

These days, Leadsom sings off a very different hymn sheet.

“She’s been on a journey from being a climate change sceptic: everything she has said and done since shows she has changed her view,” says Chris Rumfitt, chief executive of public affairs company Field Consulting.

Léonie Greene, director of advocacy and new markets at the Solar Trade Association (STA) counters that the cuts to FITs have to be viewed in the context of the “real threat” at the time that they would be axed entirely. “We managed to keep the FIT. It wasn’t what we would have liked, but there was a level of listening.”

Only a fortnight ago, the then interim energy minister Chris Skidmore told the BEIS select committee he was open to softening the government’s stance on onshore wind. And last week, the committee’s chair, Rachel Reeves, added her voice to the call.

However, Leadsom is a long-standing opponent of onshore wind. One of her first acts as an MP after being elected in 2010 was to sponsor a backbench bill calling for local communities to be given greater powers over the siting of wind farms.

Based on her track record, Whitehead believes there is “absolutely zero chance of movement” on this issue unless Leadsom has undergone a “Damascene conversion”.

Field Consulting’s Rumfitt agrees there is little prospect that Leadsom will waltz down this route. He says. “It’s very hard when you have campaigned against it locally to suddenly do a U-turn. It’s the cheapest form of energy production, so clearly this is a big setback,” he says.

Whitehead also worries that Leadsom’s broader attachment to free market principles will handicap the drive to tackle climate change. This concern finds fuel in the faith expressed by Johnson last week in the private sector and technological solutions.

He says: “She thinks the whole thing can be solved by the free market, and that intervention and support is a constraint on the market rather than shaping the market to get it into a better position.

“It’s becoming ever more evident that you can’t deliver the volumes and extent of the green and low-carbon energy revolution that is required without substantial shaping and support from the government.”

Effectively this is a new government but it still has all the same challenges

One step down on the departmental ladder, Yeo expresses regret that Perry has left the role of energy minister to take over the presidency of the UK’s bid to host next year’s COP26 UN climate change talks.

“It isn’t clear whether Andrea Leadsom will be as determined to see that through as Claire was,” he says.

“We didn’t agree all the time but at least they had the beginnings of a forward vision,” says Whitehead, referring to the previous top team at BEIS.

The STA’s Greene says she is “very glad” Perry still has a role, although she worries about the level of energy and attention given to the setting of targets and the holding of conferences rather than action. “It doesn’t help in terms of mobilising solutions, and we want to see solutions mobilised,” she says.

While some see holding the global climate change talks in London as a potentially useful mechanism for shaming the government into action, it is no substitute for actually taking steps to tackle the problem.

“Effectively this is a new government but it still has all the same challenges,” says Lawrence Slade, chief executive of Energy UK.

The Committee on Climate Change’s most recent progress report showed the government is not even on track to meet is existing fourth and fifth carbon budgets for 2022 to 2032. And these are based on the target of an 80 per cent reduction in emissions on 1990 levels by 2050, which is a far less stretching target than net zero.

The white paper that never was

The big unfinished piece of energy policy business left over from the last government is the white paper that was never published.

Greg Clark promised the energy white paper last autumn but it still hadn’t appeared by the time his tenure at BEIS ran out. He leaked the white paper’s proposed contents in a briefing to industry executives last Monday on his second-to-last night as secretary of state.

“We know the white paper was there, we know it was finished and we pretty much know what was in it,” says Energy UK’s Slade.

The government should ensure that the delay in the publication of the white paper turns out to be a worthwhile exercise, he says: “If the government is going to delay publication of the white paper, let’s all push for them to make sure that when it comes out it answers as many questions as possible and has a real sense of ambition and leadership that can really get people excited and onside.

“Let’s get the white paper out so we are on track.”

Many of the leaked proposals in the white paper have already appeared in the rash of consultations published last week by BEIS.

Nevertheless, the publication of the white paper is still important because it will provide a “narrative”, says Slade.

Whitehead expresses concern that the change of guard at BEIS will be a recipe for further procrastination. “My worry is that you will end up undoing lot of potential progress at a time when we can’t afford to wait.”

He urges the new BEIS team not to bury these consultations, which were instigated in their predecessors’ dying days in a “mineshaft”.

“We want to carry on so we can see what their position is on those things and move the debate forward,” he says.

And while adopting the headline 2050 net zero emissions target is welcome, it is not sufficient, says Yeo: “You will get a lot of lip service paid to these things but it really depends on how much follow through there is.”

Greenpeace UK’s Parr agrees. “This isn’t about high level statements. It’s about practical delivery, which takes money, commitment and time.

“There are questions about whether they have bottle and commitment to turn what were headline commitments into actual delivery. Any government coming in would face those questions and this one has them hanging over it in spades,” he says, pointing to the legacy of climate science scepticism on the libertarian right wing of the Tory party currently ascendant in the new cabinet.

“All of this stuff is hard nitty gritty. We would be sceptical about the level of commitment they will show when coming to delivery but we would like to be surprised. Let’s see some action,” he says, namechecking zero-carbon housing and electric vehicle as two areas where tangible progress is required fast.

And this will mean action across government and not just within BEIS.

Cabinet buy-in

During her short-lived campaign this year to become Conservative leader, Leadsom suggested setting up a special cabinet committee to spearhead the government’s efforts on climate change.

Slade argues that this is exactly the kind of mechanism that is needed. He suggests the committee could comprise ministers within the key ministries, such as the Department for Transport, who could make sure efforts on net zero were on track and raise issues with cabinet superiors as and when required.

“It’s the kind of thing we need to see because that starts to persuade stakeholders and the broader public that government is taking this seriously.” Slade says, adding that the new secretary of state needs powers to bang Whitehall heads together on tackling climate change

Particularly pivotal will be the relationship that Leadsom forges with the Treasury, which has put up resistance to the adoption of net zero targets because of how much they would cost. It was rumoured to be the hand of the Treasury that delayed publication of the white paper. “It’s absolutely critical that she works effectively with the Treasury. Getting that relationship working is key,” says the STA’s Greene.

Sajid Javid, who replaced Phillip Hammond as chancellor last week, signed up to the net zero target when running for the Conservative leadership. And so far, the signals are that the new regime is less tight-fisted than its predecessors.

“The cheque book is more likely to be opened, which is good,” says Slade.

But he points out that initiatives like the Committee on Fuel Poverty’s £1 billion bid to tackle energy efficiency are likely to face stiff competition amid contending spending priorities. “He [Johnson] has picked out other headline-grabbing things like social care, none of which leaves room for a significant push on the clean energy agenda,” says Yeo, who is also chair of the New Nuclear Watch Institute think-tank.

The “key test” of Javid’s climate change credentials will be whether he retains proposals to hike VAT on solar installations, says Green: “They could show they are serious about this agenda by knocking that one on the head pretty quickly.”

The lifetime of this particular government will be quite short and it will be in campaign mode

However, the new government’s spending priorities could be rapidly cast into the shade by the consequences of a no deal Brexit in October.

Slade says: “The worry here is if we come out with no deal, the temptation will be to kick the climate change can down the road a bit and spend it on tax breaks rather than energy efficiency.”

In the meantime, the government efforts will be focused on wooing back the Leave voters who deserted the Conservatives for the Brexit Party at the recent European Parliament elections.

Greenpeace UK’s Parr says: “This looks like a government that is intent on going for an election, and with Brexit all-dominant, bandwidth is going to be limited.

“The lifetime of this particular government will be quite short and it will be in campaign mode.”

• UTILITY WEEK CONGRESS 2019
  Eon’s Michael Lewis will be speaking about ‘Creating sustainable utilities of the future’ at the Utility Week Congress 2019, a two-day event in Birmingham from 8-9 October, where meeting the UK’s net zero targets will be one of the key themes discussed. For further information or to book your ticket, visit: uw-event.co.uk/congress