Financial, ideological and senior staff ties are still channelling the interests of opaquely funded think tanks into the heart of government.
The Conservative Party has received in excess of £600,000 since Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister from four board members at leading Tufton Street ‘think tanks’, a new DeSmog analysis shows.
The data also shows that free market groups based in Tufton Street, Westminster, have retained significant influence in Sunak’s administration. More than half a dozen Tufton Street alumni currently serve as special advisers to the government, while seven ministers have appeared at events hosted by Tufton Street groups since Sunak became prime minister in October.
These groups have often acted as a blocker to climate action. All are known for their anti-big-state and pro-fracking views, while their anti-green stances range from opposition to state-led climate intervention to active climate science denial. Previous reports indicate that Tufton Street groups have received substantial funds from organisations that support climate science denial in the past decade, with some donations provided directly by fossil fuel firms.
The joint-largest donation to the Conservatives during this period was made by Graham Edwards, a board member at the influential Centre for Policy Studies (CPS). He gave £500,000 in December 2022 – the same month that he was appointed as Tory treasurer, responsible for party fundraising.
Other CPS board members – Lord Michael Spencer and Lord Anthony Bamford – have also donated £100,000 and £10,000 to the party respectively since Sunak became prime minister. Lord Spencer donated via his family holding company, IPGL, while Lord Bamford’s donation is linked to his construction conglomerate, JCB.
As revealed by DeSmog this week, a firm owned by a director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) – one of the UK’s principal climate science denial groups – also donated £20,000 in March to House of Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt and Conservative MP Liam Fox.
The CPS, which is based out of 57 Tufton Street, is a leading member of the network. This alliance of free market think tanks and lobby groups catapulted into public consciousness last autumn for its outsized influence over former Prime Minister Liz Truss and ex-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, whose ‘mini budget’ on 23 September 2022 caused market panic and a dramatic fall in the value of the pound.
The funding of Tufton Street groups is notoriously opaque. Every single one of its members was given the lowest transparency rating – E – by openDemocracy’s ‘Who Funds You?’ 2022 report into think tanks. Tufton Street groups have earned £6 million collectively in their latest accounting periods.
“It’s time to kick toxic fossil fuel interests out of politics once and for all,” Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, told DeSmog. “This government’s murky ties to Tufton Street have barely diminished since Liz Truss’s economy-wrecking mini budget fiasco. When we face a rapidly closing window of opportunity to tackle the climate emergency, there are still countless climate-denying and delaying influences right at the heart of government.”
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas says the “greenest thing” about the government’s revised net-zero strategy is “the recycling of already announced ideas”.
Shadow Secretary of State of Climate Change and Net Zero Ed Miliband’s fears that the UK government’s Green Day would become a “boulevard of broken dreams” were confirmed yesterday, with green groups and politicians expressing disappointment at the lack of new green funding measures. UK Green Day, the name used by the Rishi Sunak government to launch its new net-zero strategy, was rebranded Energy Security Day, likely in order to downplay its possible climate credentials.
Following a successful legal challenge by three climate-focused non-profits – Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project – the UK government was ordered by the High Court in July 2022 to publish a revised net-zero strategy by 31 March 2023. A trickle of policy papers were released throughout the morning of 30 March; as of midday yesterday, Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans counted 44 new government documents totalling 2,800 pages accompanying the revamped strategy, Powering Up Britain.
However, to the disappointment of many, the government’s revised strategy so far appears to lack any new funding or policy announcements; instead the measures are largely a repacking or reiteration of existing plans.
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However, contrary to what many anticipated, the government has so far not used Energy Security Day to approve the Equinor-owned Rosebank oil and gas field project in the North Sea, although on Thursday afternoon, the Independentreported that the government had refused to commit to stopping the development of the contentious project.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Grant Shapps. Credit: Simon Dawson / 10 Downing Street, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Individuals and entities linked to climate denial, fossil fuels and high pollution industries donated more than £3.5 million to the Conservative Party last year, DeSmog can reveal.
Electoral Commission records show that the party and its MPs received considerable sums from the highly polluting aviation and construction industries, mining and oil interests, and individuals linked to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think tank that denies climate science.
This revelation comes on the government’s supposed ‘green day’, when it has announced a long list of policies on energy and the transition to net zero.
However, rather than strengthen the commitment to the government’s legally binding climate targets, the policies are expected to entrench the role of fossil fuels in the UK’s energy system.
The government’s updated measures include a plan to loosen restrictions on oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, in which is says “we remain absolutely committed to maximising the vital production of UK oil and gas as the North Sea basin declines”.
The government’s failure to act on a number of key recommendations in the net zero review conducted by Conservative MP Chris Skidmore, along with a legal challenge to the UK’s climate plans, has prompted outrage from green campaigners.
“It’s clear this is not a strategy, just an assembly of lobby interests,” Tom Burke, a co-founder of the E3G think tank told The Guardian earlier this week.
Caroline Lucas told DeSmog that the government’s net zero announcements were becoming “muddier and murkier by the moment”.
The government’s green day “couldn’t be any more of a misnomer, when the Conservative Party is raking in millions of pounds’ worth of dirty donations from fossil fuel interests and climate deniers”, she added.
High-Pollution Industries
Aviation entrepreneur Christopher Harborne donated the largest total sum to the Conservatives in 2022, gifting £1.5 million to the party, which had an income of £31.7 million for the year ending 2021.
Harborne is the owner of AML Global, an aviation fuel supplier operating in 1,200 locations across the globe with a distribution network that includes “main and regional oil companies”, according to its website. Harborne is also the CEO of Sheriff Global Group, which trades in private jets.
Aviation emissions accounted for eight percent of the UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions before the pandemic, according to the government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC).
Harborne has previously provided gifts to Conservative MP Steve Baker, who co-founded an anti-green group of back benchers, the Net Zero Scrutiny Group. Harborne has also donated some £6.5 million to the Brexit Party – now Reform UK – whose co-founder Nigel Farage has called for a referendum on the government’s net zero targets. Harborne has rarely spoken about the climate crisis, so the details of his personal views are unknown.
Harborne and all those cited in this article have been approached for comment.
One of the largest donations to the party in 2022 came from Mark Bamford, a member of the JCB construction dynasty, who gave £973,000. The JCB group, a multinational firm that manufactures equipment for construction, also donated more than £36,000 to the party during the year.
According to the government’s Environmental Audit Committee, the UK’s built environment is responsible for 25 percent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, and “there has been a lack of government impetus or policy levers to assess and reduce these emissions”. The construction industry is also responsible for 18 percent of large particle pollution in the UK, a figure that rises to 30 percent in London, according to a recent report by Impact on Urban Health (IoUH) and the Centre for Low Emission Construction (CLEC).
Fossil Fuel Interests
The Conservative Party also received considerable sums from those directly tied to the fossil fuel industry.
This included more than £62,000 from Nova Venture Holdings, a firm wholly owned by Jacques Tohme, who describes himself as an “energy investor” on LinkedIn and lists his current role as co-founder and director of Tailwind Energy, an oil and gas company.
According to its website, Tailwind focuses on “maximis[ing] value in UK continental shelf (UKCS) opportunities”, an area which includes the North Sea. Serica Energy reportedly has an agreement in place to buy Tailwind, which will make Serica one of the 10 largest North Sea oil and gas producers.
The party also received £10,000 from Alan Lusty, the CEO of Adi Group, a “leading supplier of engineering services to the petrochemical industry”. These services “add significant value to petrochemical engineering companies”, Adi says, though the firm claims “to work towards delivering a low-carbon economy” through its products. Adi also provides engineering services to the aerospace and automotive industries.
Centrax, a firm that manufactures gas turbines, also gifted £35,000 to the Conservatives.
A further £23,900 was raised from Amjad Bseisu, the CEO of EnQuest, an oil and gas company. Bseisu has lobbied for support to maximise the exploration for fossil fuels in the North Sea, where EnQuest operates.
During the course of his Conservative leadership bid last summer, Rishi Sunak personally received £25,000 from Mick Davis – a mining tycoon and former CEO of the Conservative Party. Davis was the CEO of Xstrata, an Anglo-Swiss firm that specialised in coal production, among other things, before it was acquired by the commodities giant Glencore in 2013.
Sunak received a further £38,000 from Lord Michael Farmer, who founded the Red Kite metals trading and investment firm. According to his register of interests, Lord Farmer currently holds shares in Shell, BP, and Chesapeake Energy Corporation – an oil and gas company. Lord Farmer donated a further £50,000 directly to the Conservative Party in 2022.
Sunak’s leadership opponent Liz Truss was also the beneficiary of donations linked to the fossil fuel industry. Truss received £100,000, her largest single donation, from Fitriani Hay, a former director of Fosroc, which provides “construction solutions” to the oil and gas industry. Her husband, James Hay, is a former executive at the oil supermajor BP.
Truss also received substantial donations from individuals linked to groups lobbying for fracking regulations to be relaxed.
Lord Michael Spencer donated £286,000 to the Conservatives during the year, both personally and via his family firm IPGL, including a £25,000 donation to the Truss campaign. Lord Spencer, a reported billionaire, holds shares in several oil and gas companies.
Lord John Nash likewise donated £55,000 to the party, with the peer’s register of interests listing him as a shareholder in Shell and BHP.
Links to Climate Denial
Individuals and firms with close ties to the GWPF, an organisation that denies climate science, also helped to finance the Conservative Party last year.
This included Sir Michael Hintze, who donated £17,500 to the party and one of its MPs, Brandon Lewis. While Hintze avoids public statements on climate change, he was one of the early funders of the GWPF – an anti-green organisation that opposes what it describes as “extremely damaging and harmful policies” to mitigate climate change.
As revealed by DeSmog, Conservative MP Steve Baker received £5,000 from Neil Record in January 2022. Record is the chair of the Global Warming Policy Forum, the campaign arm of the GWPF, and has donated to the organisation.
Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt and Home Secretary Suella Braverman each received £10,000 in 2022 from First Corporate Consultants, owned by Terence Mordaunt, who sits on the board of the GWPF. Penny Mordaunt has previously distanced herself from the views of her namesake and donor in relation to climate change.
Net Zero Review
At least 60 new measures were unveiled today, focused on energy supply and the transition to net zero. The policies were previously set for a public launch in Aberdeen, the de facto capital of the UK’s oil and gas industry, before an outcry from green campaigners forced a re-think.
The government’s updated net zero policies are partly a response to a successful legal challenge, which proved that the government had failed to disclose sufficient details of how its climate goals will be achieved.
The revamped strategy is also a response to the net zero review commissioned from Chris Skidmore by former Prime Minister Liz Truss, released in January.
The government has defied several of Skidmore’s recommendations, such as refusing to ban flaring by 2025. Flaring is the process whereby fossil fuel extractors burn off the gas that comes out of the ground while drilling for oil.
Announcements have included the continued expansion of North Sea oil and gas exploration. The North Sea Transition Authority has this week announced that it is advocating new measures to “speed up North Sea oil and gas production” by “streamlin[ing] the buying and selling of assets”.
Green campaigners have suggested that the government’s updated plans continue to fall short of its climate targets – risking further legal action.
On Wednesday, the CCC released a new report on the UK’s climate change adaptation – saying that the country is “strikingly unprepared” for the impacts of global heating.
Baroness Brown, chair of the CCC’s Adaptation Committee, said: “The Government’s lack of urgency on climate resilience is in sharp contrast to the recent experience of people in this country. People, nature and infrastructure face damaging impacts as climate change takes hold. These impacts will only intensify in the coming decades”.
On the latest episode of Radio 4‘s Any Questions Green Party MP Caroline Lucas made this exact point. Responding to an audience member who asked, “How have we got a situation where strikes are effecting the majority of public sector services?”, Lucas explained that the government is “made up of millionaires and is running the country for the millionaires”.
She told the audience in Sussex: “Well, we’ve had 13 years of austerity, and a government that frankly is made up of millionaires and is running the country for the millionaires, and doesn’t much care about the rest of us.”
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“I think there’s a real concern that they were just hoping they could sit out these strikes weren’t they. They were hoping that there wouldn’t be enough public support for public sector workers and that they would just be able to tough it out.”
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“And when you see as well, the government’s priorities – that they will find the money for the richest, but they won’t find the money for some of the poorest.”
The government wrote off emissions equivalent to 400,000 passengers flying from London to Sydney and back in one year
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/air-air-travel-airbus-aircraft-358319/
The government gave more than £300m worth of free ‘pollution permits’ to airline companies including British Airways, RyanAir and EasyJet under a scheme designed to tackle climate change.
The UK’s Emissions Trading Scheme is meant to reduce carbon emissions by forcing big polluters to buy a permit for each tonne of carbon they emit, with the money going into the public purse.
But data obtained by openDemocracy reveals the UK’s aviation sector was handed more than four million “pollution permits” last year, free of charge.
The 4.1 million tonnes of CO2 they represent are equivalent to the emissions of more than 400,000 passengers flying economy-class from London to Sydney and back. The free permits saved airlines the equivalent of £336m based on the annual average carbon price – 39% more than the previous year, 2021.
EasyJet, RyanAir and British Airways were the big winners of the handouts, bagging permits worth £84m, £73m and £58m respectively. The companies all made heavy losses during the pandemic but have since become profitable again: British Airways owner International Airlines Group (IAG) announced profits of £1.3bn last month, while RyanAir just enjoyed its “most profitable December quarter on record” and easyJet is reporting “record-breaking sales”.
openDemocracy has previously revealed how oil and gas companies including Shell and BP were similarly handed more than £1bn worth of free pollution permits during 2022.
Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, told openDemocracy the government was “letting aviation companies get away with it” and “forcing the public to pick up the tab”.
“Ministers must bring an end to these free pollution permits immediately, and make high-carbon companies pay for the climate-wrecking damage they’re causing,” she added.
The Department for Net Zero and Energy Security is now analysing the results of a consultation on phasing out free permits for the aviation sector – but policy changes will not take effect until at least 2026.
The government has already allocated 12.2 million free permits for the next three years, which at last year’s carbon price will be worth a further £965m.
A government spokesperson told openDemocracy the UK was giving away free permits because it was “committed to tackling climate change” but also to “protecting our industry from carbon leakage”.
But the risk of carbon leakage – when companies relocate to countries that do not have carbon pricing – is “minimal”, according to research commissioned by the government itself.
The study by Frontier Economics on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) also found that ending permit giveaways would lead to a decrease in airline profits and improve market competition.
Daniele de Rao, an aviation expert at Carbon Market Watch, told openDemocracy: “Despite several studies showing that the risk of carbon leakage in the aviation sector is insignificant, airlines are still receiving an enormous amount of free allocation.
“The United Kingdom should apply the ‘polluters pay’ principle in its own ETS and, following the European Union’s example, should end the handout of free pollution permits to airlines as soon as possible.”
Matt Finch, UK policy manager of campaign group Transport & Environment, added: “The nation is up in arms about sewage pollution, but at the same time our government is paying airlines millions of pounds a year to pollute. Are these the actions of a climate leader? No. Free allowances should be phased out of the ETS as quickly as possible.”
The remaining £120m in free permits was carved up among the rest of the UK airline industry – with even the owners of private jets getting handouts.
Ineos Aviation, the company owned by oil and gas billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, was given free permits worth around £2,000.
The government has claimed that “our UK ETS is more ambitious than the EU system it replaces”.
But the EU has voted to phase out free permit allocations from 2026. It also redistributes the revenues raised by permit sales to environmental projects – whereas in the UK the proceeds are retained by the Treasury.
A government spokesperson told openDemocracy: “The UK is committed to tackling climate change while protecting our industry from carbon leakage. That is why a proportion of allowances are allocated for free to businesses under the UK Emissions Trading Scheme.”
They claimed handing free permits to airline giants would “support industry in the transition to net zero in the context of high global energy prices while incentivising long term decarbonisation”.
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