Talk:Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change

Recent reversion
I support the removal of a twin column of party colours for politicians. However, in doing so, a section on an earlier post of Secretary of State for Energy has also been removed. I have used this to imnprove Department of Energy (United Kingdom), which deals with the earlier post. Peterkingiron (talk) 11:49, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose merging Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change into Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. This follows the precedent set with this page covering postholders of SoS for Energy (1974–89) as well as SoS for Energy and Climate Change (2008–2016). For all intents and purposes these are the same roles within the government, and it is needless duplication to keep two very similar shorter articles. 2A00:23C8:538A:AF01:B5C5:BBAE:74D3:EE24 (talk) 17:03, 7 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose merge. - The offices come from separate departments. The SoS for Energy and Climate Change comes from the Department of Energy and Climate Change - which is a former department and no longer exists. The department for Energy Security and Net Zero is a new department and has been formed out of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy not the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The two departments are separate and so the articles should be separate. THeShavidow1 (talk) 17:20, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I suggest you then also propose the creation of a new page for Secretary of State for Energy as the Department for Energy and Climate Change in 2008 was a "new department", yet this current page refers to the SoS for both. See here for history of department pre-today. Based on principles, it is either one page or three separate pages.  2A00:23C8:538A:AF01:B5C5:BBAE:74D3:EE24 (talk) 17:30, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The Secretary of State for Energy had responsibilities that were the same as the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. I suggest waiting until the portfolios are announced on https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/secretary-of-state before deciding to merge. If the responsibilities are completely different to https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/secretary-of-state-for-energy-and-climate-change then they should not be merged. Just from what has been announced in https://www.gov.uk/government/news/making-government-deliver-for-the-british-people "securing our long-term energy supply, bringing down bills and halving inflation"  is not the same as  "overall strategy on energy, consumer and climate change policy, international climate change negotiations, energy bills and the Competition and Markets Authority investigation, key decisions on major programmes and new policy in DECC " from https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/secretary-of-state-for-energy-and-climate-change THeShavidow1 (talk) 17:46, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Absolutely no harm in waiting until responsibilities are released, however it would have to be radically different. There is only one Home Secretary article, despite its specific responsibilities changing over time (notably in 2007 when the department was split). In terms of naming of specific roles the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has one article despite three different names for the Secretary of State role. Common sense should prevail here, it benefits Wikipedia's readers to understand that a role of this type has existing in UK politics for specific reasons in specific periods; that is best aided by having one concise article. 2A00:23C8:538A:AF01:B5C5:BBAE:74D3:EE24 (talk) 19:14, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * No harm in waiting, however, the practice of allowing similar SoS roles to be grouped by article is probably not very wise for clarity's sake. In the case of Levelling Up etc. the department was a new brief with the addition of previously lower ministerial level business. Atomix330 (talk) 19:23, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose - fundamentally different portfolios. The new role re Net Zero is about meeting previously mandated policy pledges rather than the climate change more holistically. Majority of the portfolio is focussed on energy and infrastructure. Also clear in terms of evolution that this is a brand new department so would be inappropriate. Atomix330 (talk) 02:29, 8 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Merge articles - agreed JLo-Watson (talk) 21:49, 7 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Support Closely related positions and articles not too long Chidgk1 (talk) 11:13, 8 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Support It would be a make a lot of sense given their portfolio overlap. It could be argued there is a slight difference in briefs but this is not uncommon in ministerial portfolios. For example, the business secretary seems to have a near-annual change in brief yet we do not regard those updated briefs as meaning separate portfolios or give those portfolios separate pages. Alex (talk) 07:02, 8 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Support One is clearly the successor position to the other. LookLook36 (talk) 12:15, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Reopening of Merge Proposal
Although this was not agreed to previously I am suggesting that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change page be merged with thSecretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. Below are my reasons


 * 1) Both offices have relatively similar roles - it has been argued that they are 'fundamentally different portfolios', but this is clearly not true. Both have responsibility for energy policy and climate change (now Net Zero) policy also. What's more is the Department of Energy and Climate Change was merged into the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero was split off that department. This suggests that both have similar roles
 * 2) The former Secretary of State for Energy (1974-1992) shares this page with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (2008-2016), despite being of two different departments at different time periods – surely the precedent should be followed for the newer office which is essentially a reconstitution of these two previous roles. This follows precedent with other UK roles and offices – where offices have changed and altered title but the same page is used for the same rough portfolio, this should be continued.
 * 3) The two pages are relatively small so is there really much point in having separate pages for a very similar portfolio. It can easily be noted that the departments were abolished and created.
 * 4) Perhaps most importantly – Wiki tries to make things easily accessible, as these roles are so similar (all are the UK Energy Secretary of their time) the continuity of this role should be maintained so all energy secretaries are in the same place. The history of the separate offices can be maintained in the body of an article that helps keep all the roles together.

Fm675 (talk) 20:10, 8 June 2024 (UTC)