14 2GM Thursday August 6 2020 | the times
News
A government minister was warned
against falling into the “elephant trap”
of discussing the future of a major infra-
structure project co-run by a leading
Conservative donor and businessman,
The Times has learnt.
Claire Perry O’Neill, then energy
minister, had a meeting on the Com-
mons terrace with Alexander Temerko,
previously a Russian energy company
executive. A briefing note prepared
ahead of the engagement urged her to
“avoid getting into a discussion” of min-
isters’ views on the scheme.
The Department for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy an-
nounced a month later that the Aquind
Interconnector, a planned link
between the British and French power
Energy minister met Russian
donor despite warnings of trap
grids, would be considered a “national-
ly significant infrastructure project”.
The note relating to the meeting in
June 2018 has been obtained after a
three-month freedom of information
battle. In its response the department
said “there are no minutes from the
meeting as there were no officials in at-
tendance” and that the meeting was
“primarily a political one”.
Mr Temerko, 53, is a director of
Aquind Ltd, which wants to build the
£1.2 billion electricity interconnector.
He was a senior figure in a Russian arms
firm and a Russian oil company before
fleeing to the UK in 2004. Since obtain-
ing British citizenship in 2011 he or
companies he co-directs have contrib-
uted £1.3 million to the Tory party.
The memo said that officials under-
stood that “the focus of this meetingwill be political but there are a couple of
items of departmental business that
may come up”.
It advised Ms Perry O’Neill not to
discuss Aquind’s request for the gov-
ernment to take over the planning deci-
sion for the interconnector. If Mr Tem-
erko raised the issue, the minister was
advised to reply: “I cannot discuss the
merits of this request with you given the
quasi-judicial role of business ministers
in planning matters and their role in the
decision-making process.”
On July 30 Greg Clark, then business
secretary, directed that the project be
considered for approval by ministers
rather than local authorities and the
Marine Management Organisation.
The briefing note, prepared for Ms
Perry by her civil servants, described
Mr Temerko as a Ukrainian-born Brit-ish citizen with 15 years of oil and gas in-
dustry experience, with no mention of
his previous role at a Russian arms
company or with the Russian oil giant
company Yukos, or his status as a major
Conservative donor.
The project’s approval will be deter-
mined by Kwasi Kwarteng, Ms Perry’s
successor, early in 2021. Alok Sharma,
the business secretary, who has
received £10,000 in donations from
Aquind, recused himself from the deci-
sion. Ms Perry said: “Any advice my
excellent civil servants gave me would
have been followed to the letter. And of
course I would not have determined the
final outcome as that would have rested
with the secretary of state.”
Lawyers for Aquind and Mr Temerko
said that the project strictly followed all
applicable laws and regulations.George Greenwood, Emanuele Midolo
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EWAN GALVIN/SOLENT NEWS & PHOTO AGENCYI’m prepared
to defy PM,
says Scottish
Tory leader
Mark McLaughlinThe new Scottish Tory leader said that
he would stand up to the UK govern-
ment in Westminster and he failed to
endorse Boris Johnson as being a “great
asset” for the party in Scotland.
Douglas Ross was appointed Scottish
Conservative leader uncontested yes-
terday after Jackson Carlaw resigned
on Thursday amid dire internal polling,
six months after his election as leader.
Mr Ross, a former junior minister in
the Scotland Office, became the first
minister to quit over Dominic Cum-
mings’s trip to Co Durham during the
lockdown. He told Times Radio that he
had chosen to leave in May because he
could not defend the prime minister’s
chief strategist.
“I watched Mr Cummings’s press
conference and there were a number of
issues that I still had concerns over,” he
told the show’s host, John Pienaar. “As a
government minister, I would have
been expected to go out and support
that through collective responsibility, I
felt I couldn’t do it. And in all honesty, to
my constituents, and the people who
elected me, I chose to resign from gov-
ernment to make my position clear.
“People across Scotland want a
leader of the Scottish Conservatives
who will work with the UK government
in the best interests of Scotland, but
also stand up to them if there are issues
that we can do better.”
Asked whether Mr Johnson was a
“great asset” to the Conservative cause
in Scotland, he replied: “The prime
minister is the leader of the UK govern-
ment and the UK government is invest-
ing, levelling up across the UK.
“When he was up in Scotland last
week he was announcing the growth
deal for the islands of the Western Isles,
Orkney and Shetland that shows direct
investment that’s coming from the UK
government to these communities.”
Mr Ross is expected to seek a seat at
the Holyrood election next year.
In the meantime Ruth Davidson, the
former Scottish Tory leader, has been
asked to represent the party at first
minister’s questions until she takes up
her seat in the House of Lords.