Following the promotion of Grant Shapps, who is replacing Ben Wallace as defence secretary, Claire Coutinho has been appointed as the new Secretary of State for energy security and net zero.
Pulled into the cabinet by Rishi Sunak, the East Surrey MP, who was first elected in 2019, is its youngest member, having been promoted from the role of under-secretary for children, families and wellbeing.
Her previous jobs include working for the investment bank Merryl Lynch, KPMG and at Ian Duncan Smith’s centre right think tank Centre for Social Justice.
Her first political role was as special advisor at the Treasury, where she spent some time advising the now PM and then Chancellor himself.
It comes as environmental campaigners have raised concern around the PM’s decision to expand oil drilling in the North Sea, and amid much furore about the expansion of Ulez (which Coutinho expressed her opposition to).
Subscribe to Sustainability Beat for free
Sign up here to get the latest sustainability news sent straight to your inbox everyday
While Coutinho is a Sunak loyalist, environmental campaigners are hoping that she might help to provoke a change of approach in the Prime Minister, owing to her having expressed a keen interest in the subject in her maiden speech back in 2020.
Greenpeace policy director Doug Parr said: “We don’t envy the energy secretary’s job. She’s picked up the baton for the final leg of a relay where her fellow runners have mostly been walking, sometimes backwards.”
“Her department has a huge amount of catching up to do on both, from removing absurd blockages to cheap renewables to fixing our energy-wasting homes and bringing our power grid into the 21st century”.
“Perhaps she could persuade the Prime Minister to build on that success story instead of blocking it. If she can do that, it will be good news for bill payers, the climate and the economy. We wish her best of luck with that.”
