What Miatta Fahnbulleh brings as energy secretary – and the tests waiting for her

The UK has a new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. Following Ed Miliband’s promotion to the Foreign Office, Miatta Fahnbulleh is now set to head up the department responsible for the UK’s energy policy and quest for net zero. 

While Miatta Fahnbulleh is a relatively new parliamentarian, having only become an MP back in 2024, she’s not exactly new to energy policy. That’s because under Keir Starmer she spent 14 months at DESNZ as minister for energy consumers, covering domestic bills, smart meters, energy efficiency, clean heat, heat networks and commercial building decarbonisation. 

She left Government in May, where she has been helping shape Andy Burnham’s policy positions – which given her closeness to the new Prime Minister could bode well for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. In fact, within the first 24 hours on the job, the UK Government had already announced two major changes that impacted her department – one that would see VAT cut on electricity bills, and the other that would divert some clean energy funding for international countries towards paying for a £2 bus cap. 

The department is likely a good fit for Fahnbulleh. She has consistently argued that climate policy should be treated as economic and social policy, rather than as a separate environmental obligation. In a 2019 essay for Foreign Affairs, she said the aim should be net-zero carbon emissions within 10 to 15 years, supported by extensive public investment and a Green New Deal. 

Despite that support, it should be noted that she wrote opinion while she was running a think tank, and may not necessarily represent the reality of her role as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. She has, however, more recently has supported arguments for a more ‘productive’ state and greater public control over essential services, while warning that electricity, housing, water and transport have become unaffordable for too many people.

Her earlier ministerial record suggests that affordability will be accompanied by an interest in whether energy systems work once installed. At DESNZ, Fahnbulleh dealt with failed smart meters, supplier performance, heat-network consumer protection and poor-quality retrofit. She argued that clean domestic energy offered longer-term protection from volatile fossil-fuel prices and backed consumer-led flexibility, but also acknowledged cases in which customers had been left with inaccurate bills or equipment that did not operate correctly. 

During her later housing brief, she supported a more integrated role for strategic authorities in planning land use, transport, building electrification and grid capacity. That combination – consumer protection at one end and spatial planning at the other – is particularly relevant as electrification moves from individual schemes towards system-wide delivery.

Her most immediate delivery test will be Allocation Round 8 of the Contracts for Difference scheme. Applications opened on July 20 and are due to close on August 7, meaning much of the ground work will already have been laid by her predecessor Ed Miliband, but she is still likely to have significant influence. That’s because the main auction budget won’t actually be confirmed until after projects have been assessed – giving her significant influence. 

At the same time, NESO is developing the pathway options for Britain’s first Strategic Spatial Energy Plan, which will map the broad types, locations and timings of electricity and hydrogen generation and storage from 2030 to 2050. 

Those two decisions will need to be made in lockstep, as procuring generation is of limited value where connection dates, network reinforcement and planning constraints make delivery improbable.

Whether Fahnbulleh will take to the role in the same way Ed Miliband had during his tenure as energy secretary – where he championed the likes of Great British Energy and massive reform – remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that Burnham wants visible action on household costs, while renewable developers, network companies and the electrical supply chain will still need confidence that long-term infrastructure investment will not be sacrificed for a short-term reduction in bills. 

Burnham has also signalled a softened approach to North Sea oil production, which Fahnbulleh will have to wrangle against her previous quest to go further and faster on net zero. While her background suggests that she will favour active government, strategic planning and stronger consumer accountability, there are still many unanswered questions. That becomes especially pertinent when you wonder whether she can impose enough delivery discipline to turn those instincts into generation that gets built, networks that arrive on time and electrical assets that perform after handover.