Six years on, Mr Wicks, it's time to start knocking some heads together

Making energy policy is a tough business. Government commitments run three ways: to radical reductions in carbon emissions, to the ‘imperative’ (Gordon Brown’s word) of energy security and to to tackling rising numbers of families in fuel poverty. With oil now over $140/barrel, being energy minister is even more difficult than usual, as the present incumbent, Malcolm Wicks, will know well. But government has nevertheless done itself few favours in this area over the last three years.

Back in the relatively easier days of 2003, the government set a bold new direction after an unprecedentedly inclusive engagement with both public and stakeholders. The energy white paper in that year put carbon emission reductions at the ‘heart’ of energy policy.

We were now aiming at a 60 per cent absolute emission reduction by 2050. This represented a major shift in direction ­— previously government policy had all been about sweating existing assets — and a potentially historic commitment, unprecedented at the time in the OECD world. The spearheads were to be renewable energy and energy saving: much consensus ensued.

The 2003 document was, understandably given the speed of the policy turnaround, short on specific policy detail. The detailed policy substance would, it seemed, follow later. But all that happened in the next two years was some modest and incremental policy developments that hardly promised the radicalism needed to make the 60 per cent target look credible.

Then, in late 2005, Tony Blair suddenly announced a need for a major, across-the-board energy policy review. This was a surprise, even — it seemed — to other parts of government, as the long-term architecture had been apparently set only two years earlier.

Ostensibly the new review was needed because of a deteriorating energy security position, but there seemed another plausible agenda. This was to rescue nuclear power from the long-term obscurity which the 2003 white paper had reinforced.

Civil servants scurried, and a new consultation document appeared in January 2006, followed by a perfunctory consultation exercise that largely excluded the public. By April 2006 Blair was announcing the nuclear power was back on the agenda ‘with a vengeance’ though the consultation had barely finished.

With expectations running high that there would be a new white paper, instead we got, in July 2006 ‘a review’. A new white paper would be published, but not until the following year. But the review did say much more positive things about nuclear power.

Greenpeace objected to the apparent endorsement of nuclear power and won a judicial review, which concluded in early 2007 that government had failed in its promise of the ‘fullest public consultation’ before proceeding with nuclear power.

Disarray followed: publication of the white paper was postponed and (in a moment containing elements of farce) Blair announced both that there would be more nuclear consultation but that policy would not change at all. The credibility that the 2003 policy-making had built was now severely dented.

The white paper did finally appear in May 2007 together with a further consultation on nuclear power. This consultation led to a separate white paper on nuclear power in January 2008.

The policy process was now thoroughly fragmented and policy was now dangerously over-reliant on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme as the new spearhead of UK climate change policy — dangerous because it is an instrument over which there is very limited national control.

Meanwhile the EU policy system was developing Union-wide proposals on renewable energy, about which the UK government was now privately expressing some scepticism. This resulted in a commitment that Europe would use renewables for 20 per cent of all energy (not just electricity) by 2020.

This was highly ambitious: the UK was expected to reach a 15 per cent level of renewables by the same date. Government has now published a consultation on this.

It is pretty clear what government expects back: 15 per cent is a ‘very challenging target’ (a phrase that devotees of ‘Yes Minister’ will instantly recognise); it will depend on the private sector; and — most telling of all — 15 per cent might be achievable if we can use ‘all options and there are no cost constraints’. Government clearly does not want to hear — challenging as it genuinely is ­— that 15 per cent is remotely feasible in the real world.

More positively, the 2007 white paper developed a new, interesting and genuinely long-term proposal. This was the establishment of a Committee on Climate Change serviced by a cross-departmental office. This is being established through a Climate Change Bill, in turn allowing the new Committee to set legally binding carbon budgets in five-year tranches.

This could provide a welcome focus for long-term policy, but responsibilities for energy and climate change are otherwise currently still split principally between DBERR and Defra, with significant roles for Transport and CLG.

We seem to have several, sequential energy policies managed by a range of departments. We urgently need to develop a single, long-term focal point in government to pursue a long-term and coherent strategy — and government also needs to re-establish legitimacy and some degree of consensus. The Committee on Climate Change might just prove the vehicle for this, but no bets should yet be placed.

Professor Gordon MacKerron is Director of the Sussex Energy Group, University of Sussex.