Lords sleaze probe into Conservative peer Gummer’s £600k ‘green’ fees
After the MoS exposes conf lict of interest claims...
THE Lords sleaze watchdog has launched a formal investigation into claims that John Selwyn Gummer f ail ed to declare more than £600,000 of payments made to his private company by ‘green’ businesses that stand to profit from his advice to Ministers.
Five MPs lodged a complaint with Standards Commissioner Lucy Scott-Moncrieff following last week’s Mail on Sunday revelations about the business interests of the Tory peer, who chairs the influential Climate Change Committee (CCC).
Just hours l a t e r, she announced her inquiry into allegations he may have breached code of conduct rules.
The CCC has backed taxpayer- funded subsidies for ‘renewable’ energy projects, and last week we disclosed how Gummer’s family consultancy firm Sancroft International had been paid by businesses working in the same field.
It is understood that a dossier submitted to the Commissioner by the MPs – Labour’s Graham Stringer and Tories David Davi es, Nadine Dorries, Craig Mackinlay and Andrea Jenkyns – included details of our investigation as well as claims that he failed to properly declare his financial interests when s peaking i n a number o f debates in the Lords.
Gummer, who became Lord Deben in 2010 after a 35-year Commons career, last night said that he ‘welcomes the fact that an independent person will be looking into these allegations’. He has previously denied any conflict of interest or failure to comply with disclosure rules. The CCC declined to say whether the 79-year-old would be suspended while the inquiry is conducted.
The Lords i nvest i gat i o n announced on Friday was sparked by our revelations last weekend that Sancroft had been paid by at least nine businesses and campaign groups involved in projects to cut greenhouse gases. Achieving such a reduction is the central aim of the CCC, which has been chaired by Lord Deben since 2012.
While the peer – who as Agriculture Minister famously fed his four- year- old daughter Cordelia a beefburger at the height of the BSE crisis in 1990 – has declared his chairmanship of Sancroft, he has not publicly declared any of the payments made to it by ‘green’
Five MPs submit dossier of evidence
firms which could have benefited from policies supported by the CCC.
Documents leaked to this newspaper showed such payments included almost £300,000 over five years from Johnson Matthey, an engineering firm that makes batteries for electric cars; £50,000 from Temporis Capital, venture capitalists with interests in windfarms and solar energy; and £15,500 from Drax, a green energy producer that receives £ 700 million a year in Government subsidies.
It is understood that Lord Deben considers allegations that there has been any conflict of interest or impropriety as false and misconceived and believes that he has made disclosures in line with advice received from the House of Lords and the CCC.
His position is also understood to be that Sancroft’s work for Johnson Matthey did not relate to electric cars, that the payment by Drax had been cleared by the CCC and that his links with Temporis did not constitute a conflict because only briefings, rather than advice, had been provided.
The CCC was created in 2008 to offer independent advice to the Government on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. It has urged Ministers to fund large subsidies for ‘renewable’ energy firms by adding ‘green’ levies – currently totalling £8.6 billion a year – to fuel bills.
As chairman of the CCC, for which he receives £1,000 a day, Lord Deben is subject to a Cabinet Office code of conduct which requires officials to declare publicly ‘any private interests which may, or may be perceived to, conflict with your public duties’.
Lord Deben entered t he House of Commons in 1970, going on to become Environment Secretary and then Tory Party Chairman.
Ms Scott-Moncrieff, a lawyer and former president of the Law Society, was appointed as the House of Lords Standards Commissioner in May 2016.