Jacob Rees-Mogg, who decried ‘climate alarmism’, to take on UK energy brief

Former Brexit opportunities minister becomes business and energy secretary in Liz Truss's first cabinet

Jacob Rees-Mogg has taken on responsibility for energy after Liz Truss had struggled to find a dedicated minister to fill the role amid concerns over his scepticism.

Two Conservative MPs are understood to have turned down the role of climate change minister earlier in the day. However, late on Tuesday night No 10 announced that Graham Stuart would take the brief and be attending cabinet, prompting speculation that Downing Street had succumbed to concerns of green Tories about giving the role to Rees-Mogg as originally planned.

Clearly expectations of a final disaster are part of man's psychology and the doomsayers of the quasi religious green movement fit the bill. Perhaps one day the world will end, giving the last group to predict it the satisfaction of being right - but as many have been wrong so far it does not seem wise to make public policy on the back of these fears.

It is widely accepted that carbon dioxide emissions have risen but the effect on the climate remains much debated while the computer modelling that has been done to date has not proved especially accurate ... common sense dictates that if the Meteorological Office cannot forecast the next season's weather with any success it is ambitious to predict what will happen decades ahead.

I would like my constituents to have cheap energy rather more than I would like them to have windmills.

I think we have to be realistic about what we can change, the timescale over which we can change it, and actually I think mankind is highly adaptable, and we need to look at more adaptability rather than changes in behaviour.

Net zero is going to be a huge regulatory cost and that is an issue for the country to face and to face up to ... If we were to have a one in, one out' or one in, two out' rule [where a piece of regulation is scrapped for every new one instituted], you would end up excluding net zero, as we previously excluded EU regulation, and then you're tinkering at the edges because you're ignoring the biggest piece of regulation.