DECC is to be abolished and merged into the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, according to reports.
Paul Goodman, editor of influential Tory blog ConservativeHome, tweeted: “Told DECC to be folded into BIS.”
Addressing DECC oral questions in Parliament, energy minister Andrea Leadsom failed to deny the rumours. “You’ll have to wait and see,” she said.
The minister responded to a second question on the rumours: “The assumption you have to have a department for something in order to meet (climate change) objectives is not one I agree with at all”.
DECC has often been rumoured to be abolished in recent months.
“The suggestion is DECC will be hacked apart,” UK Energy Research Council researcher Joseph Dutton told subscription-only newsletter reNEWS last month.
“Some bits will be absorbed by BIS, some by Treasury and DECC will just be a rump of, essentially, fracking and nuclear.”
DECC was created in October 2008 by then Prime Minister Gordon Brown to take over some of the functions related to energy of the then Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and those relating to climate change of Defra.
The rumours come after the appointment of former Energy Secretary Amber Rudd to Home Secretary.
Prime Minister Theresa May has yet to appoint Rudd’s successor at DECC.
Image: DECC offices in Whitehall (Iesteph)
