Utility Week

8 | 2ND - 8TH AUGUST 2019 | UTILITY WEEK News Inside story Water companies are unlikely to miss Gove The water industry at least will be glad to see the back of Michael Gove from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural A• airs (Defra). As secretary of state at Defra since the 2017 general election, the former journalist has become a sharp thorn in the side of water bosses. However, more broadly on the back of a high- pro… le campaign to curb plastic pollution, Gove won new friends. Field Consulting's Rum… tt says: "Defra has thrived under Gove, very largely because of him. He's a divisive … gure but has done some interest- ing stu• and brought Defra back up in the world." He suspects that Gove's successor, Theresa Villiers, owes her appointment to her loyalty to Johnson. Villiers backed Andrea Leadsom (the new BEIS secretary) during the last leadership contest in 2016, but she switched to Johnson this time. And Villiers, whose main job in government until now has been secretary of state for Northern Ireland, is one of the staunchest supporters of Brexit in the parliamentary Conservative party. Villiers herself hasn't adopted a particularly high-pro… le stance on environmental issues, but is clearly sympathetic to this strand of thinking. As far back as 2011, long before Extinction Rebellion propelled the issue near the top of the political agenda, the ex-lawyer supported a climate change awareness week in her north Lon- don constituency of Chipping Barnet. The reshu• le has also seen a promotion for Therese Co• ey, who has been promoted to minis- ter of state at the department. Co• ey has had responsibility for water since she joined Defra in 2016, and the precise terms of her new portfolio had not been hammered out when Utility Week went to press this week. 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 prac- tical delivery, which takes money, commit- ment 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 stu is hard nitty gritty. We would be sceptical about the level of commit- ment they will show when coming to deliv- ery but we would like to be surprised. Let's see some action," Parr says, namechecking zero-carbon housing and electric vehicles as two areas where tangible progress is required fast. And this will mean action across govern- ment and not just within BEIS. Cabinet buy-in During her short-lived campaign this year to become Conservative leader, Leadsom sug- gested setting up a special cabinet commit- tee to spearhead the government's e orts 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 e orts 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 relation- ship 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 e ectively with the Treasury. Getting that relationship working is key," says the STA's Greene. Sajid Javid, who replaced Phillip Ham- mond as chancellor last week, signed up to the net zero target when running for the Con- servative leadership. And so far, the signals are that the new regime is less tight-Œ sted than its predecessors. "The cheque book is more likely to be opened, which is good," says Slade. But he points out that initiatives such as the Committee on Fuel Poverty's £1 billion bid to tackle energy e" ciency are likely to face sti competition amid contending spending priorities. "He [Johnson] has picked out other headline-grabbing things like social care, none of which leaves room for a signiŒ cant 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 pro- posals to hike VAT on solar installations, says Greene: "They could show they are seri- ous about this agenda by knocking that one on the head pretty quickly." 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 e" ciency." In the meantime, the government's e orts will be focused on wooing back the Leave voters who deserted the Conservatives for the Brexit Party at the recent European Parlia- ment 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 govern- ment will be quite short and it will be in campaign mode." "Andrea Leadsom has a background in energy and I had the opportunity to work with her … My experience was that she was very accessible. She will understand the challenges and opportunities for the sector." Michael Gibbons, chairman of the BSC Panel and Elexon continued from previous page

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