In order to save money it is being proposed that the controversial Green Deal home improvement plan should be mothballed while some spending on nuclear decommissioning would be delayed.

Overall, DECC’s £3.3bn annual budget is expected to be one of the biggest casualties in percentage terms of George Osborne’s latest austerity drive. He announced last week that it would have to find £70m in this financial year and that figure is expected to rise significantly in the autumn Spending Review. The department has already lost the equivalent of one full-time minister following last month’s reshuffle and there are expected to be significant staff cuts as big projects such as the Green Deal and Electricity Market Reform are wound down.