Rishi Sunak has split the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)

Later this week the UK Government will face a reshuffle, however, today (7^th of February 2022), Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has split the UK’s Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to create a new Department for Energy Security and Net-Zero.

The 1922 BEIS Backbench Committee released its report: ‘Energy Market Reform: tackling the energy trilemma in January (2022), which stated that this split should occur to help the UK to transition to cleaner energy.

The new department will be headed by Grant Shapps, who was previously the UK’s Secretary of State for Business. The role of this new department will be to bring down energy costs, halve inflation and secure our energy supply for the long term.

A statement from Downing Street claims that the establishment of this new department has occurred as the government:

“recognises the need to secure more energy from domestic nuclear and renewable sources as we seize the opportunities of net zero”.

There is hope that this new department will mean that net zero will become a higher priority for the UK Government, which will help it to secure its target by 2050.