Amber Rudd,   Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change

The SEA already has a well-established relationship with Amber Rudd. During her brief tenure as Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Coalition Government we had a number of significant engagements with her – she spoke at our Christmas Reception, at the Sustainability Hub event that we sponsored, at the Tory conference, had a private dinner with the SEA Executive Committee, as well as meeting the SEA’s Chairman and Chief Executive to discuss the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund and ECO in October. There have also been a number of exchanges of correspondence on other more specific detailed aspects of policy.

In discussions with Members since the announcement of her appointment, there are mixed views. Whilst a number of members understand and know that it was on her watch that the ECO changes were implemented, it seems to be accepted that the policy was set long before she took office, and that her hands were largely tied in other areas of policy as well. More broadly, some of the quotes in the attached brief on fuel poverty are helpful generally, though we will need to set out clearly how these can be translated into a longer term policy to boost the market for energy in buildings. She has also said a number of positive things about acceptance of Climate Change, the need to act on it, and will now lead the UK’s input to the Paris negotiations on the next stage of an international legally binding agreement to cut emissions.

Finally and importantly, Amber Rudd has a good relationship with the Chancellor, George Osborne, having served as his Parliamentary Private Secretary in the last Parliament. In the face of a challenging forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review for DECC, this will affect a number of policy areas affecting SEA members – GDHIF spend, all the policies caught by the Levy Control Framework, and particularly departmental spend on the RHI, which SEA modelling suggests would need to be around £6.5bn during the next Parliament, are likely to feature strongly in negotiations with the Treasury.”

 Other Ministerial appointments

 DECC

 Lord Bourne is the junior Minister in DECC who will pick up most of the principal brief for the SEA’s main areas of interest. Specifically, he has responsibility for energy efficiency and heat, and, if previous convention is followed, this may also include FITs.

 HM Treasury 

Two Ministers are particularly relevant here. Greg Hands, as Chief Secretary, will be responsible for the forthcoming Spending Review as well as being responsible for within year spending control. He and his civil servants will therefore take a keen interest in the measures that fall under DECC’s levy control framework, as well as the RHI. To the extent there is any appetite to move funding of energy efficiency programmes away from fuel bills, he may have a role in this also. Like Amber Rudd, he has also served as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to George Osborne.

The other relevant Treasury Minister is Harriet Baldwin. Although not explicitly stated in the published portfolios, it is normally the Economic Secretary to the Treasury that has responsibility for Environmental Taxation.

 Communities and Local Government

Greg Clark, the new Secretary of State, was well known to us before the Coalition was elected in 2010 as he served as shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (at the time Ed Miliband’s opposite number), and he was the Coalition Minister responsible when our very own Ron Bailey negotiated for Nick Hurd MP to get his private members bill, The Sustainable Communities Act, into law.