Rishi Sunak has reshuffled his cabinet and broken up the sprawling business department, as he attempts to galvanise his government and its much-criticised growth strategy.
The UK prime minister named Greg Hands, a Sunak loyalist and trade minister, to replace Nadhim Zahawi as Conservative party chair, with a remit to prepare the party for an expected election next year.
Zahawi was sacked by Sunak last month after revelations about his tax affairs. Dominic Raab, deputy prime minister, is under investigation over bullying allegations — which he denies — but he stays in his post for now.
Sunak also used the reshuffle to carry out major Whitehall surgery, creating four new departments to put a new emphasis on energy security and efforts to turn Britain into a “science superpower”.
Sunak broke up the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) — the subject of repeated Whitehall reorganisations over the years — as he reconfigured his cabinet to focus on his political priorities.
Grant Shapps, who was business secretary, will head a new Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, a ministry charged with boosting Britain’s energy supplies and its transition away from fossil fuels.
Michelle Donelan, who was culture secretary, will head a new Science, Innovation and Technology department, combining the digital responsibilities of her old department with the science portfolio of BEIS.
Separately the remainder of BEIS will be merged with Kemi Badenoch’s Department of International Trade to become the Business and Trade department.
Lucy Frazer, who was housing minister, will run a “refocused” Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which will lose its digital and tech responsibilities, with a remit to “build on the UK’s position as a global leader in the creative arts”.
Downing Street said: “The changes will ensure the right skills and teams are focused on the prime minister’s five promises: to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut waiting lists and stop the boats.”
Liz Truss, former prime minister, this week urged Sunak to do more to boost UK growth — including through deregulation and tax cuts — while many Tory MPs and business leaders have called for a clearer growth strategy.
Whitehall veterans are sceptical about the merits of such “machinery of government” changes, warning that in the short term they tend to cause disruption and uncertainty among policymakers.
“You spend months arguing about new jobs, who has the best window view, who keeps the yucca plant,” said one. With an election expected in 2024, Sunak will hope the new system beds in quickly.
Successive prime ministers have attempted to redesign the business department to reflect their own priorities. In 2016 it became BEIS under Theresa May’s government, to incorporate industrial strategy.
But in 2021 Kwasi Kwarteng, then business secretary, scrapped the government’s industrial strategy, saying it was a “pudding without a theme”.
Badenoch’s new Business and Trade department is charged with “promoting investment and championing free trade”, taking on the duty of export promotion and trying to secure post-Brexit trade deals.
Trade deals with the Pacific region and India are under negotiation, but a trade deal with the US is nowhere in sight. Other post-Brexit trade deals have been mainly “rollovers” of existing EU trade deals.
The dedicated Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has been charged by Sunak with “turning scientific and technical innovations into practical, applicable solutions” and “making sure the UK is the most innovative economy in the world”.
Energy is again a self-standing department, having been merged into BEIS during the May government.
Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow energy spokesperson, said: “So seven years after the disastrous decision to abolish the Department of Energy, the Conservatives now admit they got it wrong, but a rearranging of deckchairs on the sinking Titanic of failed Conservative energy policy will not rescue the country.”
