Former Energy Secretary endorses call to scrap the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero

22 January 2026

Britain must abolish its Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in order to bring down the cost of energy for businesses and households, according to a new paper by Prosperity Institute, titled ‘It’s Broke, Fix It. Where British Energy Policy Went Wrong, and How to Get it Right’.

The Prosperity Institute is a London-based think tank pushing a free-market, pro-Brexit agenda. It has more than forty donors, including the Dubai-based Legatum Foundation.

The new report by Rupert Darwall for the Prosperity Institute, with a foreword from Claire Coutinho MP, criticises the UK’s current approach to green energy and Net Zero, arguing that the promises made to the British public by successive former governments have proven “too good to be true.”

The report highlights growing concerns over the cost, reliability, and priorities within the nation’s energy system.

Since the mid-2000s, government initiatives have pledged a rapid transformation to a green energy sector driven by solar and wind power. These promises included the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs, reduced carbon emissions, and lower energy bills.

However, the report contends that the reality has not matched expectations.

The foreword, written by Claire Coutinho MP, former Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero under the Sunak government says “Since the mid-2000s, the British people have been promised something that seemed too good to be true: a swiftly delivered green energy sector built on solar and wind power that would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and reduce our carbon emissions and energy bills at the same time… The trouble is, it was too good to be true.”

Darwall argues that consumers are no longer the priority within the energy market stating: “Both the cost and reliability of our energy system have been subordinated to the legislative requirement to meet climate targets. What’s more, we have crippled the productivity of our electricity supply, replacing on-demand dispatchable generation with unpredictable renewables.”

In addition, the report, endorsed by the current Shadow Secretary of State for DESNZ raises questions about the role of Ofgem, the UK’s energy regulator. Once considered an independent consumer watchdog, Ofgem has become “an enforcer for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero,” according to Darwall’s research.

The report makes three key recommendations:

• Main point: divorce climate policy from energy policy
• Recommendation #1: Abolish Department for Energy Security & Net Zero and replace with a slimmed down department focussed exclusively on energy policy
• Recommendation #2: Wholesale clear-out of Ofgem leadership
• Recommendation #3: Establish a New Generation taskforce to identify ways to rapidly replace around 20GW of missing dispatchable capacity

In her foreword, Coutinho says, “As we look to a future unburdened by Net Zero and the Climate Change Act, the ideas in this report will be immensely useful to debate so we can chart the journey back to an energy system that puts consumers at its core.”

Report author, Rupert Darwall says: “Whichever party or parties form the next government, they have only one chance to get energy policy right by applying the lessons of the past and decisively breaking with two decades of policy failure.”

Fred de Fossard, director of strategy for the Prosperity Institute adds: “The Prosperity Institute believe that access to cheap and abundant energy is one fundamental pillars of national prosperity. Without it sustained economic growth is not possible. This paper gets to the root of the issue, examining the folly of the last two decades of energy policy, allowing us to deeper understand how to get out of here and restore cheap, abundant energy to the United Kingdom. Britain’s bureaucracy is not fit for purpose. As Rupert Darwall’s paper says, we will not restore sovereignty and prosperity to British energy policy without wholesale institutional change. This paper is the next step in Prosperity Institute’s plan for British energy abundance.”

The full report can be found at www.prosperity.com/media-publications/its-broke-fix-it/

Image credit: Picture by Simon Walker on Flickr