Shuffling

Fascinating developments this morning as Gordon Brown re-shapes his Government.

The good news is from what we can tell there is to be a new Department dealing with Energy and Climate Change. At long last! The Lib Dems got there first (yours truly!) by merging the energy portfolio with the DEFRA job, as it's pretty hard to talk about energy policy sensibly without thinking about the implications for climate change. It will be interesting to see if the new department takes over the remaining stages of the Climate Change Bill and accepts our amendment to toughen it up. Perhaps at long last energy efficiency will be taken seriously instead of being a cinderella.

All we need to do now is include transport, building standards, green taxation.... in the Department's remit and we might be getting somewhere!