Grant Shapps was dubbed the ‘minister for fossil fuels’ in a scathing assessment of his tenure as energy secretary.
Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg on Sunday, TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall said Shapps’ departure from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero was the “best thing that happened in Westminster last week”.
Shapps was appointed defence secretary following the resignation of Ben Wallace on Thursday last week.
Wallace announced in July that he would be leaving the post the next time the prime minister announced changes to his cabinet, as well as stepping down as the MP for Wyre and Preston North.
This is the fifth cabinet post to be held by Shapps in a year – having served as transport secretary under Boris Johnson, home secretary for six days under Liz Truss, and as business secretary before his most recent appointment as energy secretary.
Fearnley-Whittingstall, a member of the Green Party, added: “The really exciting news is not that he’s minister of defence, it’s that he’s no longer in charge of net zero because his position there was indefensible.
“We’ve seen the country go backwards, we’ve seen the government go backwards over the past year. He was really acting as a minister for fossil fuels and for as yet unproven technologies in the jet fuel industry, and he did nothing to advance the cause.
“In particular he’s been ignoring one of the biggest problems we have which is the continuing ban on onshore wind, the cheapest form of electricity and the best way to give us energy security and bring down electricity.
While energy secretary, the government granted hundreds of new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, ignoring calls from environmental campaigners to stop the development of new fossil fuel projects.
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