Secretary of State for the Environment

Department of the Environment

Department overview
Formed	15 October 1970
Preceding agencies	Ministry of Public Building and Works Ministry of Transport Ministry of Housing and Local Government
Dissolved	1997
Superseding agency	Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
Jurisdiction	United Kingdom
Headquarters	London, England, UK

For the contemporary UK cabinet post which holds the Environment portfolio, see Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The Secretary of State for the Environment was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Department of the Environment (DoE). This was created by Edward Heath as a combination of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Public Building and Works on 15 October 1970. Thus it managed a mixed portfolio of issues: housing and planning, local government, public buildings, environmental protection and, initially, transport - James Callaghan gave transport its own department again in 1976. It has been asserted that during the Thatcher government the DoE led the drive towards centralism, and the undermining of local government. Particularly, the concept of 'inner cities policy', often involving centrally negotiated public-private partnerships and centrally appointed development corporations, which moved control of many urban areas to the centre, and away from their, often left-wing, local authorities.

In 1997, when Labour came to power, the DoE was merged with the Department of Transport to form the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), thus, essentially, restoring the DoE to its initial 1970 portfolio. The titular mention of 'the Regions' referred to the government's pledge to create regional government. In the wake of the 2001 foot and mouth crisis, the environmental protection elements of the DETR were split of and merged with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), to form the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Meanwhile, the transport, housing and planning, and local and regional government aspects went to a new Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR). A year later the DTLR also split, with transport getting its own department and the rest going to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Secretaries of State for the Environment

Name		Term of office		Political party	Prime Minister
	Peter Walker	15 October 1970	5 November 1972	Conservative		Edward Heath
	Geoffrey Rippon	5 November 1972	4 March 1974	Conservative
	Anthony Crosland	5 March 1974	8 April 1976	Labour		Harold Wilson
	Peter Shore	8 April 1976	4 May 1979	Labour		James Callaghan
	Michael Heseltine	5 May 1979	6 January 1983	Conservative		Margaret Thatcher
	Tom King	6 January 1983	11 June 1983	Conservative
	Patrick Jenkin	11 June 1983	2 September 1985	Conservative
	Kenneth Baker	2 September 1985	21 May 1986	Conservative
	Nicholas Ridley	21 May 1986	24 July 1989	Conservative
	Chris Patten	24 July 1989	28 November 1990	Conservative
	Michael Heseltine	28 November 1990	11 April 1992	Conservative		John Major
	Michael Howard	11 April 1992	27 May 1993	Conservative
	John Gummer	27 May 1993	2 May 1997	Conservative