Cameron fleshes out DECC team

The ministerial team at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was fleshed out yesterday with the appointment of Conservative MPs Charles Hendry and Greg Barker as ministers of state to work alongside the Liberal Democrat energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne.

A spokeswoman for DECC said ministerial briefs for Hendry and Barker had not yet been finalised, revealing only that further details would be released shortly.

It is also not yet clear if more appointments will be made. Under the Labour government the department operated with three ministers working alongside then secretary of state Ed Miliband, and an appointment from the Lords will also be required to manage energy and climate change legislation through the House of Lords.

The announcements came as prime minister David Cameron visited DECC for the first time this morning and delivered an address to staff stressing the central role the department will play in pushing forward the new government's low-carbon policies.

"I want us to be the greenest government ever," he told civil servants. " It's a very simple ambition and one I'm absolutely committed to achieving."

Hendry and Barker have considerable experience of environmental and climate change issues.

Hendry, who has been MP for Wealden since 2001 and previously worked at PR firms Ogilvy & Mather PR and Burson-Marsteller, has held the post of shadow minister for energy since 2005.

Similarly, Barker, who worked at a number of firms in the City before becoming an MP in 2001, served on the Environmental Audit Committee between 2001 and 2005 before taking up the post of shadow minister for climate change and environment.

As a result, he led Tory support for the UK's Climate Change bill and was a key author of the party's Low Carbon Economy green paper which formalised Cameron's efforts to reshape the Conservative approach to environmental issues. He was promoted to shadow climate change minister when DECC was formed in October 2008.

Meanwhile, Conservative MP James Paice has been confirmed as minister of state at the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs, where he will work alongside newly appointed secretary of state Caroline Spelman.

Like Spelman, Paice has considerable experience of the agricultural sector, having worked as a farmer and represented the UK on the European Council of Young Farmers in the 1970s.

He has served as MP for South East Cambridgeshire since 1986 and worked as parliamentary private secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture from 1989 to 1993. He has worked on the Conservative front benches since the 1997 election and served as shadow secretary of state for agriculture and rural affairs since 2004.