Thread by @ChiefExecCCC

A quick take on today's Spending Review.

This was what HMT call an 'RDEL' event (bit.ly/2SCYdjH). In other words, a review of government's resource spend. It isn't intended to move major capital programmes (that's for next year). It's also only a one-year review.

In these circumstances, it was always going to be difficult to achieve the major shifts in #netzero policies, many of which are infrastructure focused, few of which are about resource expenditure.

A cynic might say that achieving these shifts before an election is also unlikely.

Given the constraints of this Spending Review, there are some grounds for optimism.

The extra £30m for BEIS, which is receiving lots of negative attention, is 'admin' (ie staff) and programme expenditure. That's a potentially huge increase in staffing on #netzero. That's good.

We're also promised a National Infrastructure Strategy this autumn, which I expect to be heavily influenced by #netzero - helped by the strong (but separate) agreement between @theCCCuk and @NatInfraCom on the key infrastructure priorities in the years ahead.

HMT is also gearing up to do its review of how the costs of #netzero are managed. This is essential. We know that some major strategic national policy levers need to be re-considered (e.g. think of the tax penalty on consuming electricity vs gas; or dwindling fuel duty revenues).

And next year, we can expect the HMT #netzero review to feed into a Comprehensive Spending Review, just weeks before (hopefully), the UK hosts #COP26.

Those are as good a set of conditions as I can think of to move policy up a gear over the next 12 months.

Yes - it would have been lovely to see bigger steps today, but the political and fiscal constraints were pretty restrictive for it. We also need Government to gear up effectively for the #netzero mission ahead.

That said, climate change doesn't hang around for 'CDEL' events...