ABSTRACT
The Labour Government established the Energy Technology Support Unit, originally an off-shoot of the UK Atomic Energy Authority based at Harwell, as a service agency for the Department of Energy. A large volume of reports from the Department of Energy were published from 1975 onwards; the Energy Policy Green Paper was issued in 1978; a national energy conference was sponsored by Tony Benn in June 1976, and he followed this with the Energy Commission, and the Commission on Energy and the Environment. The greatest are that energy prices will rise in real terms, unemployment is likely to increase, and the age distribution of the population is getting older. Examination of other countries’ policies in the energy field was not one of the Commission’s functions, although much might have been gained in terms of ‘best-practice’ policies as a result. The Department of Energy and its antecedents have long been organised on the basis of ‘sponsoring’ divisions shadowing the main supply industries.
