Liz Truss has appointed the Conservative MP Chris Skidmore to lead a review of net zero, to find the most efficient and fastest ways to reach the climate target. The former energy and climate minister has been given until the end of the year to present his findings to the prime minister. Skidmore, who chairs the environment all-party parliamentary group, has been campaigning for his party to take the issue of net zero more seriously. He said: “I am delighted to have been invited by the PM to conduct the review. It’s essential government delivers net zero, and does so in a way that is pro-business and pro-growth. I’m looking forward to getting started.” He told the Guardian during his tour of north-west England to promote net zero: “As the former energy and climate minister who signed net zero by 2050 into law, I’ve been determined to show that net zero isn’t just about going green; it is essential for future economic growth. One of the reasons why I’m out on tour with the all-party environment group which I chair is to demonstrate how net zero is going to benefit the lives of people across every region.” He said the review would look at how to incentivise businesses to take up the green industrial revolution and increase growth. “There is a green industrial revolution happening across the country that Westminster is slow to wake up to. Businesses are just getting on with net zero. But further to government support, we need to go further in creating a supply-and-demand-side revolution in renewable and clean energy and energy efficiency measures. “That means looking again at how we can change and reform financial incentives, regulations, planning, and much more to help make going net zero even easier and unleashing a clean economic growth revolution.” During the leadership election campaign, Skidmore was part of a small group of Conservative MPs, including the Cop26 chair, Alok Sharma, and the environment minister Zac Goldsmith, who encouraged the candidates to sign up to the net zero pledge. Truss signed up at the time, and said she would look at how to put net zero into practice while encouraging economic growth.
Environmental campaigners have looked at her cabinet choices with some trepidation, as she has made Jacob Rees-Mogg business and energy secretary, and he has been sceptical about climate measures in the past. Truss also made the former thinktank chief Matthew Sinclair, who has said global heating could bring benefits, her economic adviser. There has also been disquiet about Truss’s plans to end the moratorium on fracking, as it could signal a wish to appease the more climate-sceptic right of her party by focusing on fossil fuel expansion over measures such as renewables and insulation. She ruled out a windfall tax to help with energy bills, at her first prime minister’s questions against Keir Starmer, adding: “I believe it is the wrong thing to be putting companies off investing in the United Kingdom, just when we need to be growing the economy.”