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Boris Johnson addresses the UN Climate Action Summit last month.
Boris Johnson addresses the UN Climate Action Summit last month. Photograph: Jason DeCrow/AP
Boris Johnson addresses the UN Climate Action Summit last month. Photograph: Jason DeCrow/AP

MPs and the oil industry: who gave what to whom?

This article is more than 4 years old

A trawl of MPs’ interests shows donations and gifts from fossil fuel firms and climate contrarians

Oil companies, petrostates and climate contrarian thinktanks, businessmen and unions have given at least £5m to MPs over the past 10 years in the form of donations, expenses-paid trips, salaries and gifts.

A trawl through parliament’s register of interests suggests Conservative politicians are far more likely to accept support from such sources.

The Guardian is not suggesting MPs were paid for their votes, which is forbidden by law, but the scorecards highlight the legitimate lobbying activities of outside organisations who have most to lose from action to stop global heating.

The data is included on the MPs’ climate scorecards so voters can ask questions of their parliamentary representatives.

Salaries, shareholdings and donations from fossil fuel companies

Nadhim Zahawi at the Conservative party conference in Manchester last month. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative MP for Stratford-on-Avon, received more than £1m from fossil fuel companies, all of it declared and legitimate. Zahawi spent much of his parliamentary career working as chief strategy officer for Gulf Keystone Petroleum, which paid him £52,325 in backpay in October 2015 and a monthly salary of £20,000 from October 2015, rising to almost £30,000 a month in August 2017, and some £330,000 in bonus payments. He stopped working for the company on becoming a government minister in 2018 (at which time he received a final payment of £116,000).

He also declared shareholdings in Genel Energy, an Anglo-Turkish oil and gas exploration and production company, and a donation from Amjad Bseisu, the chief executive of the UK-based oil company EnQuest.

Until August 2015 the former oil exploration company Afren and the former Canadian oil company Talisman, which was a major producer from the Alberta tar sands, were clients of Zahawi & Zahawi, a business advisory service. The Guardian contacted Zahawi’s office for comment, but received no reply.

Alan Duncan walks through College Green, near the Houses of Parliament. Photograph: Isabel Infantes/AFP/Getty Images

Alan Duncan, a former Foreign Office minister, also has close ties to the petroleum industry. After leaving a post in the international development ministry, Duncan, while still an MP, registered as a non-executive chairman of Fujairah Refining in the United Arab Emirates, for which he received £8,000 a month for a job involving three weekend meetings a year. Along with a severance package, payments totalled £90,000. The majority owner of that refinery is the energy company Vitol, owned by the UK businessman Ian Taylor.

Duncan formerly headed the Conservative Middle East Council, which arranges trips for Tory MPs with funding from businessmen with ties to Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. He has made multiple trips to Oman and Saudi Arabia as a guest of the host government or its supporters, and has received gifts of a watch or cufflinks on a number of occasions from the sultanate of Oman.

A former employee of Royal Dutch Shell, prior to 2009 Duncan declared incomes from Arawak Energy (an undisclosed amount), a company involved in oil exploration and production, and Harcourt Consultants, a firm he established to advise clients on the oil and gas industry.

Duncan told the Guardian: “There is no logic in suggesting that by taking an interest in the Middle East that someone is against carbon reduction. Likewise, all of the votes listed were directed by party whipping not by any supposed link to Middle Eastern politics.”

Others who receive incomes from the carbon-producing sector include Alistair Burt, whose 2015 register includes £5,000 income for work as a non-executive director of the oil exploration company President Energy; John Hayes, Conservative MP for South Holland and The Deepings, who has declared an expected £50,000-a-year salary from an oil firm, BB Energy; and Conor Burns, a trade minister, who has declared £10,000 per quarter since 2011 for 10 hours’ work for Trant Engineering, an oil and gas engineering firm, totalling more than £300,000.

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What is the polluters project?

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The Guardian has collaborated with leading scientists and NGOs to expose, with exclusive data, investigations and analysis, the fossil fuel companies that are perpetuating the climate crisis – some of which have accelerated their extraction of coal, oil and gas even as the devastating impact on the planet and humanity was becoming clear.

The investigation has involved more than 20 Guardian journalists working across the world for the past six months.

The project focuses on what the companies have extracted from the ground, and the subsequent emissions they are responsible for, since 1965. The analysis, undertaken by Richard Heede at the Climate Accountability Institute, calculates how much carbon is emitted throughout the supply chain, from extraction to use by consumers. Heede said: "The fact that consumers combust the fuels to carbon dioxide, water, heat and pollutants does not absolve the fossil fuel companies from responsibility for knowingly perpetuating the carbon era and accelerating the climate crisis toward the existential threat it has now become."

One aim of the project is to move the focus of debate from individual responsibilities to power structures – so our reporters also examined the financial and lobbying structures that let fossil fuel firms keep growing, and discovered which elected politicians were voting for change. 

Another aim of the project is to press governments and corporations to close the gap between ambitious long-term promises and lacklustre short-term action. The UN says the coming decade is crucial if the world is to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of global heating. Reining in our dependence on fossil fuels and dramatically accelerating the transition to renewable energy has never been more urgent.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the House of Commons. Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House of Commons, has ignored the Conservative whip on more than 120 occasions, mostly on issues related to Europe, but he has generally followed the party line in voting 10 times against measures that would bring emissions down. He has cast doubt on the reliability of scientific forecasts and blamed “alarmism” for high energy prices.

The Guardian contacted Rees-Mogg’s office for comment, but received no reply.

There are few direct donations from fossil fuel firms. Michael Gove, the current chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and former environment minister, received £10,000 from Tullow Oil in 2010.

Climate contrarian donors

Three of the biggest donors to the Conservative party are funders or board members of the climate science sceptic thinktank the Global Warming Policy Foundation:

  • The Australian hedge fund manager Michael Hintze has donated cash to at least 13 current and former Conservative MPs, including £5,000 to Boris Johnson and Phillip Hammond, office expenses for David Davis as well as a donation of £2,000 to his Afghan project, and a transatlantic flight for Liam Fox. He has given other MPs Chelsea football tickets, a Vatican trip and a sprinkling of tickets to black-tie fundraising dinners, including to Theresa May.

  • First Corporate Shipping, which operates Bristol Port and is co-owned by the climate sceptic Terence Mordaunt, donated £25,000 to both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt during the recent Conservative leadership contest. Greenpeace said the two candidates in the runoff were being “bankrolled by a director of Britain’s leading climate denial group”.

  • The currency trader Neil Record donates mostly to the former energy and climate minister and now health minister Matthew Hancock (whose voting score stands at 17%), who has registered £24,000 from this one source on seven occasions between 2010 and 2017. The West Suffolk MP has voted against solar subsidies and onshore wind, and supported fracking.

Expenses-paid trips to petrostates

Saudi Arabia is a major lure for UK parliamentarians despite the oil state’s reputation as a major obstacle at global climate talks. More than 40 MPs have made expenses-paid visits to the kingdom since 2008, the majority of them from the Conservative party. Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates also regularly invite MPs, and Azerbaijan has hosted trips for at least 11 MPs.

King Salman of Saudi Arabia meets a delegation of Conservative politicians in 2017. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Although there can be many valid reasons for overseas visits – some MPs go to lobby the kingdom over its dismal human rights record – the fact that they are often paid by hosts has led to questions by watchdog organisations.

Steve Goodrich, research manager at Transparency International, said the number of MPs who accepted visits to Azerbaijan – a petrostate with a big corruption and human rights problem – was astonishing. “Unlike political donations, there are no controls on foreign sources paying for parliamentarians’ visits abroad. Saudi Arabia or Azerbaijian can legally ferry out as many MPs as they like on ‘fact-finding missions’, which often look like a crude attempt to burnish the government’s reputation,” he said.

Transparency International is campaigning for MPs to be prohibited from taking such trips.

Football, rugby and dinner tickets from airports and oil firms

Some of the declared interests are relatively small, but show how ties develop through hospitality at sporting events. Eighteen MPs – all but two of them from the Conservative party – have received tickets paid for by fossil fuel companies, transport companies or climate contrarians. This seems to be a key strategy of the aviation industry. Stanstead airport paid for Priti Patel’s match tickets for Arsenal v Crystal Palace. London City airport charitably allowed Bob Neill to attend three West Ham United matches; Alec Shelbrooke to attend two games of the same team; Crispin Blunt to watch Six Nations rugby and James Brokenshire to see an unspecified football game. Manchester Airports Group stumped up for Caroline Nokes to watch England play New Zealand at rugby, while Cardiff airport treated Alun Cairns to a Welsh rugby match. Airbus generously invited three politicians – John Howell, Robert Courts and Stephen Doughty (Labour) – to attend the Royal International Air Tattoo. Oil companies also showed similar hospitality. BP paid for Wimbledon tickets for Graham Brady, while ExxonMobil provided tickets to the SNP politician Douglas Chapman for a Burns supper and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

How the leaders fare

Boris Johnson. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Boris Johnson recorded the worst possible score, zero. The prime minister, who became an MP in 2015, was only eligible to vote in five of the 16 votes: the renewable energy levy, decarbonisation targets, carbon capture and storage, onshore wind, and vehicle emissions tax. In every case he voted against a positive climate impact. He did not exercise his vote on Heathrow expansion, though he had verbally opposed it.

His previous record in this field is patchy. As foreign secretary, Johnson cut the number of climate attaches. As mayor of London, he shrank the congestion zone. As a columnist for the Telegraph, his views have been ambivalent, notably once writing that “global leaders were driven by a primitive fear that the present ambient warm weather is somehow caused by humanity; and that fear – as far as I understand the science – is equally without foundation”.

Johnson has accepted support from several sources that are sceptical about climate action. When he ran for leadership of the Conservative party earlier this year, he received a £25,000 donation from First Corporate Shipping, which is run by Mordaunt, a director of the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), which denies the need for urgent climate action. He has previously accepted money from Hintze, another donor to the GWPF, and gone on trips paid for by the government of Saudi Arabia and the American Enterprise Institute, a US thinktank that plays down climate concerns and lobbies for environmental deregulation.

A Conservative party spokeswoman said the methodology was unfair. “Boris Johnson and the Conservatives are taking world-leading action on climate change. We have reduced emissions by a quarter since coming to office in 2010, the fastest reduction by any G20 nation, and boosted renewables to record levels.”

Jeremy Corbyn speaks at a climate protest in Parliament Square in May. Photograph: John Keeble/Getty Images

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition, scored 92%, above the average of 90% for the shadow cabinet. He participated in 13 of the 16 climate votes. In all but one (nuclear energy subsidies), he supported the side most likely to lower emissions.

The Labour leader also proposed the declaration of a climate emergency passed by the House of Commons this year. This is not included in any of the scorecards because the motion was approved by general assent, which means there are no records of who was present or which side MPs supported.

Labour MPs were far less likely than Conservatives to accept gifts or money related to fossil fuel interests. This is partly because they are in opposition and largely because they tend to rely more on donations from trade unions, most of which usually support climate action. The exception is GMB, which started out as the gas workers’ union and continues to support fracking. Unite has also endorsed the expansion of Heathrow airport because it will create jobs.

Very few Labour MPs are considered climate sceptics. The standout exception is Graham Stringer, who serves as an unremunerated director of the GWPF.

Jo Swinson gives her speech at the Liberal Democrats’ party conference in Bournemouth last month. Photograph: James Veysey/Rex/Shutterstock

Jo Swinson scored 50%. The Liberal Democrat leader was present for eight votes and voted positively in four. During the coalition government, the party’s MPs voted against decarbonisation targets and low-carbon subsidies, and twice voted for fracking permits. However, the Lib Dems also supported a 2011 green Energy Act that is not included in this analysis – it was passed without a vote. The Lib Dems now advocate more progressive climate policies. Their more recently elected MPs have higher scores because they were not in parliament during the coalition period.

Caroline Lucas addresses Extinction Rebellion activists outside the Ministry of Defence last week. Photograph: Ollie Millington/Getty Images

Caroline Lucas scored 92%. The only Green MP in parliament has led from the front on the climate issue. The representative for Brighton voted positively in 11 out of the 12 divisions. The reason she did not score 100% in our analysis is that, in the 2013 vote on nuclear power subsidies, she put wider environmental concerns (risks of radioactive contamination, waste and accidents) ahead of emissions, and argued that the subsidies would be better spent on other, safe forms of renewables.

Additional reporting by Lucinda Campbell, Nur Pirbhai, Christine Parry and Hanako Lowry

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