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UK Climate Committee head facing calls to resign over ‘scandalous’ conflicts of interest – ‘Payments from ‘green businesses’ to his family firm’

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/02/02/climate-change-committe-head-lorddeben-facing-calls-to-resign-over-what-appear-to-be-colossal-and-scandalous-conflicts-of-interest/

David Rose exposes another apparently corrupt green politician:

Tory peer in £600,000 conflict of interest: Climate Change chief John Gummer faces calls to quit over payments from ‘green businesses’ to his family firm…

  • Conservative peer’s family-run consultancy been paid huge sums by businesses 
  • MPs say Mr Gummer should have declared the payments – but he never has
  • He last night denied conflict of interest and said complied with disclosure rules

Tory peer John Selwyn Gummer’s private company has been paid more than £600,000 ($785,458 USD) from ‘green’ businesses that stand to make millions from his advice to Ministers.

The Conservative grandee heads the Government’s powerful Climate Change Committee that vigorously supports pumping billions of pounds in public subsidies into firms developing environmentally friendly technology.

Yet a Mail on Sunday investigation has discovered that his family-run consultancy has been paid huge sums by businesses that have cashed in on those lucrative taxpayer-funded handouts.

MPs say Gummer should have declared the payments – but he never has.
Last night, he vehemently denied any conflict of interest and insisted he had fully complied with disclosure rules.

He admitted his company received the payments, but insisted the work it undertook did not involve climate change issues.

Explosive documents leaked to this newspaper reveal that Sancroft International has been paid by at least nine businesses and campaign groups involved in projects to cut greenhouse gases.

That is the main aim of the committee 79-year-old Gummer leads – although policies it champions have been criticised for forcing up taxes and household energy bills.

Among the dossier’s contents, we can reveal that:

  • Engineering giant Johnson Matthey, which makes batteries for electric cars, paid Gummer’s firm nearly £300,000 over five years before he personally urged the Government to speed up plans to make all new cars on Britain’s roads battery-powered;
  • Venture capitalists Temporis Capital – whose profits from windfarms and solar energy projects are bolstered by huge Government subsidies – paid the company £50,000 between 2012 and 2017;
  • Controversial green energy producer Drax, which gets £700 million a year in Government subsidies, paid Sancroft £15,500 while the Climate Change Committee was writing a report on its activities.

Last night Gummer, who was a Tory MP for 40 years before becoming Lord Deben in 2010, was facing calls to resign over what appear to be ‘colossal’ and ‘scandalous’ conflicts of interest exposed by this newspaper.

Much, much, more at The Mail on Sunday

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