Government clarifies controversial Claire Perry fracking industry meeting

The government has been forced into an apparent climbdown over a summer meeting between Claire Perry and fracking industry executives, after the Energy and Clean Growth Minister was accused of misleading MPs for failing to declare the two-hour "roundtable" on the public record.

Perry attended a meeting at the BEIS offices on 21st May in Westminster, which was also attended by representatives from shale industry trade body UKOOG and a raft of companies in the fracking and oil industries, including Cuadrilla, Ineos, iGas, Third Energy, BP, and others.

The two-hour roundtable took place two months before Perry controversially gave Cuardrilla the green light to drill the UK's first onshore shale gas well near Blackpool.

Green groups have strongly opposed drilling for shale gas in the UK, amid fears further fossil fuel exploration could blow a hole in the UK's carbon budgets, but the government claims fracking can boost energy security and prove compatible with the UK's climate change commitments.

However, Perry did not initially declare the May meeting, which was also attended by Marriott Drilling, JP Morgan, energy consultancy Aurora, and several trade bodies and community groups.

BusinessGreen understands BEIS officials decided at the time that as Perry left before the end of the meeting, the event did not meet the criteria for inclusion in quarterly transparency returns.

But in Parliament last month Labour's Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner, who also retains a climate change brief, challenged the Minister to publicly confirm that she attended the meeting.

In response, Perry claimed "the ministerial code does not require Ministers to disclose meetings that they drop in on, as opposed to host in their office".

Yet following calls from Labour for an official investigation into Perry's conduct - and a claim that she breached the Ministerial Code - details of the meeting were finally published on the BEIS website late last week in an apparent U-turn by the government.

According to a Whitehall source, the move to publish details of the meeting last week came "in response to recent public interest in shale gas development". Moreover, it is expected that any future engagement between the Minister and the shale gas sector - including meetings, phone calls or letters - will now be included on the public record.

Precise details of the roundtable had only initially emerged after a Freedom of Information request in October. Notes from the meeting suggest the Minister was present for at least 70 minutes, encompassing a Q&A session and a 20-minute presentation in which she "stressed the potential economic benefits" of the shale gas industry in the UK, such as job creation and its ability to "replace older, declining industries".

Perry and senior BEIS officials present at the meeting also said the UK needed to "make the case for shale clearly and get past myths on the topic".

However, the Minister did not publicly disclose the meeting on the official transparency register at the time, despite telling MPs in July that she had held "a very effective shale industry roundtable".

Speaking in the Commons last month during a debate on fracking on 20th November, Perry said: "The idea that I would hold secret meetings with an industry that is so potentially vital is, frankly, ridiculous."

However, Gardiner claimed there is no stipulation in the Ministerial Code that allows for "drop in" meetings to be excluded from the official register, and that in any case Perry's length of time in attendance - over an hour at least - "does not constitute 'dropping in' on a meeting".

In a letter to the Prime Minister last Wednesday Gardiner called for "an investigation into a possible breach of the Ministerial Code" to be launched, as "the Minister's involvement in the meeting was not as casual as she suggested".

The letter highlights sections of the Ministerial Code stressing the 'paramount importance' that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, adding that those who knowingly mislead Parliament are expected to resign. 

"Not only did she give inaccurate information to Parliament in claiming that there was no need to record the roundtable in the transparency register... but she also appears to have misled Parliament on the extent of her participation in the roundtable, and she has not yet been forthcoming in correcting her statement," the letter states.

Gardiner called on Prime Minister Theresa May to "take the appropriate steps to rectify [the matter] at once".

The letter was sent ahead of the official record being updated last week to include the controversial meeting.