02 February 2024 , 18:00
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An oil and gas firm part-owned by a billionaire Tory donor and former party Treasurer has been offered two new North Sea licences.
Lord Michael Spencer is the largest shareholder at Deltic Energy - one of 17 companies including giants Shell and BP awarded provisional licences on Wednesday.
Lord Spencer, who served as Treasurer of the Conservative Party between 2006 until 2010, has a 18.8% holding in the firm - worth around £4.5million He has donated over £6million to the Tories either through his investment firm IPGL or under his own name, Electoral Commission records show.
The finding uncovered by climate website Desmog comes after climate campaigners slammed the "shameful decision" to award new licenses.
Earlier this week Friends of the Earth said the Government had "given up any pretence that they have a shred of concern about climate breakdown". Greenpeace UK also said the Government "still has its fingers in its ear" despite the climate emergency and was "greenlighting a new drilling frenzy in the North Sea".
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Lord Spencer was given a seat in the House of Lords in 2020 when Boris Johnson was PM. Speaking during Liz Truss's short-lived premiership Lord Spencer praised the "pro-business" ex-PM for rallying against windfall taxes on the excess profits of the energy sector. The Tory peer told LBC in 2022 the levy - estimated to raise almost £26billion by 2028 - were "not Tory policies" and "not pro-business".
The independent regulator North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which is owned by the Government and grants licences, declined to comment on individual cases. Deltic Energy also declined to comment. But Lord Spencer told The Mirror: "I believe it is totally in the best interest of the UK to replace imported oil and gas by energy extracted from our own North Sea."
A Conservative Party spokesperson said: “Donations to the Conservative Party are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, openly published by them, and comply fully with the law.”
After criticism from climate campaigners this week, the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero Graham Stuart said: "We will continue to need oil and gas over the coming decades, so it is common sense to make the most of our own resources - with domestically produced gas almost four times cleaner than importing liquefied natural gas from abroad.
"These new licences will strengthen our energy security now and into the future, while also helping boost our economy, by backing an industry that supports 200,000 jobs and is worth £16 billion each year."
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said:“All oil and gas licences are granted by the NSTA, independent of Government. Licences are granted through a thorough and robust process and there are strict criteria which each licensee must meet."