Your guide to the department's cast of ministerial characters, and what’s in their in-trays
Led by Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader of bacon-butty-eating, brother-defeating and “Ed Stone”-preaching fame, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is responsible for one of Labour’s five “missions to rebuild Britain” – to make the country a clean energy superpower, with a fully decarbonised power system by 2030.
In the first three weeks of Keir Starmer’s government, Miliband launched Great British Energy, a publicly owned energy company; agreed a partnership between GB Energy and the Crown Estate to kickstart green power projects; and appointed climate expert Chris Stark to lead a new clean energy mission control centre to put a “laser-like focus” on delivery. He has also lifted a ban on onshore wind farms; approved three giant solar farms; and jointly launched a new National Wealth Fund, which will aim to attract billions of pounds in private investment into new, green and growing industries.
Miliband was also swiftly met with words of warning from the Climate Change Committee – the government’s independent climate advisers, previously led by the aforementioned Stark. In a report published just a fortnight after Labour came to power, the CCC warned that the government must urgently undo the “damage” to net-zero progress from Rishi Sunak’s autumn 2023 policy reversals or risk not being able to “make up lost ground” on meeting the country’s net-zero commitments.
In his first message to DESNZ officials as energy secretary, Miliband said he was “inspired” and “excited” to take on the role as it “speaks directly to the twin passions that continue to motivate me” – resolving economic inequality and tackling the climate crisis.
Having been energy and climate change secretary from 2008 to 2010 under the last Labour government, Miliband said arriving at DESNZ felt “like coming home”.
“Back then, I saw first-hand the brilliant work that civil servants do and I know how hard you have worked on behalf of the country in the years since,” he added. “The civil service is one of Britain’s great institutions and I look forward to working with you to change our country for the better.”
“The civil service is one of Britain’s great institutions and I look forward to working with you to change our country for the better” Ed Miliband
Miliband, who was shadow energy secretary for the department since its creation in February 2023 and a mainstay in energy and climate change frontbench positions since Starmer became Labour leader in 2020, pledged that DESNZ would be a “mission-driven department” on his watch, “mobilising citizens, businesses, trade unions, civil society and local government in a national effort”.
His team of two senior ministers and three junior ministers includes two former civil servants.
Sarah Jones is minister of state for industry, a senior role which sits in both DESNZ and the Department for Business and Trade. Before becoming an MP, she was part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport team delivering the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The other senior role in the department is held by Lord Philip Hunt, minister of state for energy security and net zero. Lord Hunt’s previous experience in government includes a spell as minister of state for sustainable development, climate change adaptation and air quality under Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.
The ministerial team also includes energy consumers minister Miatta Fahnbulleh, another ex-civil servant who worked in the PM’s Strategy Unit under Gordon Brown and led the coalition government’s Cities Policy Unit. She was later a policy adviser to Miliband while he was leader of the opposition and was most recently chief executive of left-wing think tank the New Economics Foundation.
Climate minister Kerry McCarthy and energy minister Michael Shanks make up the rest of the ministerial team.
Read up on ministers in other departments here