So, Rishi has reshuffled his cabinet; a Rishiuffle, if you will. However, rather than just rearranging his ‘top team’ he has actually gone for a shakeup of Whitehall. He’s split BEIS into several departments, taken Digital away from DCMS, and merged Business and Trade. Oh, and there is a new Chairman. All pretty big stuff.
On the Chairman point, I’m not exactly sure what it is they do other than try and keep the party in power (good luck with that). I do know Greg Hands though. He was a minister at the Department for International Trade when I worked there. I rated him very highly as he was very competent which is a quality often in short supply in Westminster. I often wondered why he hadn’t been made a Secretary of State so I’m pleased to see that he’s got a promotion. I guess you could say that the Tory Party is in good hands…
Given that Trade has now been subsumed by what is left of BEIS means that my old department is no more (RIP). However, we should not mourn as this is quite good news. As I wrote just last week, DIT should be closed down and its functions taken over by another department. I argued that it should be moved to the Foreign Office, but merging it with the Business portfolio also makes sense. My concern though is that trade might just start getting knocked about both in the sense that it might get shuffled between departments and also pushed about by other departments (something which already happens).
We now have a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. This is a very welcome move. It seemed pretty bonkers to me that we didn’t have a separate energy department recently given it has been the key driver of inflation and the cost of living crisis. Also good to see Net Zero get its name on the wall given that climate change is one of the biggest risks to the planet. If Grant Shapps wants to provide the UK with energy security so that we will never again be at risk of being blackmailed by evil regimes and also ensure that we reach the Net Zero target then he’s going to need to ensure the country builds enough nuclear power plants, wind turbines, and solar panels. He’ll need the full backing of the government to take on the NIMBYs who will attempt to thwart it.
We also now have a Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology. Again, this is really welcome news. Innovation and technology are some of the key drivers of economic growth and the UK has real strengths in these areas and in science. I’ve written before that we need a dedicated Department for Innovation in order to take this seriously. It is unclear whether the University portfolio will be a part of the new department, but it certainly should be.
Michelle Donelan needs to ensure that the Oxford-Cambridge Arc gets given the go ahead. Universities such as Cambridge, the LSE, Imperial, and Oxford are among the greatest in the world and produce high quality research and the area in and around them are home to innovative companies which specialise in technology. The UK is rightly proud of them but we are at risk of losing our edge. We need to build millions of new homes and a lot more labs and offices in this area. We should also link up the three cities via high speed rail. This will help to massively boost productivity in our most successful regions, bringing benefits to the entire country and the world. Donelan – like Shapps – will need the backing of the Prime Minister in order to take on the NIMBYs and other vested interests to ensure that this gets done.
It’s a relief that Digital has been taken away from Culture, Media, and Sports. It was never entirely clear why Digital found itself there in the first place other than as a weird power grab by some long forgotten minister. It was a department which had a tendency to meddle as evidenced by how it tried to muscle in on our trade negotiations with Singapore and the ridiculous and damaging Online Safety Bill. Digital (whatever that actually means) is also incredibly important to the UK economy as it’s an area we have real strength and expertise in and companies and entrepreneurs working in this area need to be free to innovate without being hampered by the government.
It is disappointing but not surprising that Rishi was not even bolder in his Whitehall shakeup. I’ve written about this before, but he should have split up the Home Office. It’s too big and powerful and so interferes in the work of other departments. Given that it’s responsible for both crime and controlling the borders (it’s bad at both) it tends to view – and often treat – immigrants like criminals. In its current form the Home Office is scuppering trade deals, preventing the country from getting the workers it needs from around the world, and stopping the country from introducing sensible and evidence based drug reform. It should be broken up.
The Prime Minister should have also taken a leaf out of Stian Westlake’s book and dismantled his own department, the Treasury. HMT has come under a lot of unfair criticism in recent days for promoting what is actually very sensible stuff. However, it does have a tendency to lean towards bean counting and acts like an accountant. This is all perfectly fine, but not if it gets in the way of the government investing in schemes which can promote economic growth. The Treasury should be split up into a department which focuses on the government’s balance sheet and a more powerful department dedicated to economic growth.
I’m surprisingly pleased with the reshuffle. Although it could have been even more ambitious, there is a lot in there to like. Realistically it’s the best we could hope for. I don’t normally end on such a positive note, but there we are.