Water companies unlikely to mourn Gove

Michael Gove certainly managed to turn round his public image during his two year tenure as secretary of state at Defra (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).

When he was brought back into government by Theresa May after the 2017 general election, Gove was chiefly notorious for stabbing his fellow Vote Leave campaigner Boris Johnson in the back during the Conservative leadership election campaign.

However, on the back of high profile campaigns, such as curbing plastic pollution, Gove has rehabilitated his public image over the past two years.

Chris Rumfitt, chief executive of public affairs consultancy Field Consulting, says: “Defra has thrived under Gove, very largely because of him. He’s divisive figure but has done some interesting stuff and brought Defra back up in the world.”

The water industry though will be glad to see the back of Gove, who become a big thorn in the side of water bosses. He has been as critical of water companies’ dividends and executive pay as he once was of the educational establishment during his controversial tenure overseeing schools.

But now Gove has left the department in the hands of Theresa Villiers, who said she had been “honoured” to take the post,

Field suspects that Gove’s successor owes her appointment to her loyalty to Johnson.  After being one of new BEIS secretary of state Andrea Leadsom’s leading backers during the last leadership contest in 2016, the Bristol University graduate switched to the new PM this time.

And Villiers, whose main job in government until now was secretary of state for Northern Ireland from 2012 to 2016, is one of the staunchest supporters of Brexit in the Parliamentary Conservative party.

Villiers, whose family can trace its lineage back to Edward II, hasn’t adopted a particularly high-profile stance on environmental issues but is clearly sympathetic to this strand of thinking.

In her statement accepting the invitation to rejoin the government, she said: “The issues this department deals with are incredibly important and I have championed a number of them, including air quality and animal welfare.”

As far back as 2011, long before Extinction Rebellion propelled the issue near to the top of the political agenda, the ex-lawyer supported a climate change awareness week in her in north London constituency of Chipping Barnet

The reshuffle has also seen a leg up for Theresa Coffey, who has been promoted to minister of state at Defra. Coffey has had responsibility for water issues since she joined the department in 2016, even though the precise terms of her new portfolio had yet to be hammered out.