Lord faced scrutiny over work with green companies
LORD Deben, who is chairman of the independent Committee on Climate Change, has previously faced scrutiny for his private work with ‘green’ firms.
The peer – formerly Tory environment secretary John Gummer – is also chair of environmental consultancy firm Sancroft International.
He was cleared after a conflict of interest probe in 2019 over £600,000 paid by clients of Sancroft which allegedly stood to profit from his advice to ministers.
The Mail on Sunday revealed at least nine businesses and campaign groups made payments to Sancroft International Ltd – some running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The peer had always declared the fact he owns and chairs Sancroft to the House of Lords register and the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), but he never identified its clients. He has always denied any conflict of interest.
In February, The Daily Telegraph reported that Sancroft was contracted to work for the Qatari government. Qatar accounts for nearly half of Britain’s gas imports.
The CCC wrote to then-business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng suggesting ministers support a ‘tighter limit on production’ of oil and gas and favour imports.
Lord Deben, 82, told the Telegraph: ‘There can be no conflict of interest in advising people everywhere that sustainability demands that they move away from fossil fuels.’
In 1990 while he was minister of agriculture, he famously fed his daughter a beefburger to reassure the public during the mad cow disease crisis.