Tories received 40% of its donations from fossil fuel interests in campaign's first week

Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives accepted hundreds of thousands from major donors with financial ties to the oil and gas industry.

By Peter Geoghegan and Sam Bright

The Conservative Party accepted £225,000 in donations from firms and individuals with financial interests in oil and gas during the first week of the general election campaign, Democracy for Sale and DeSmog can reveal. 

Rishi Sunak’s party was given £575,000 from 30 May, when Parliament was dissolved, to 5 June, official figures show. 

This included £75,000 from Alasdair Locke, an oil, gas and motor fuel executive, £50,000 from Lord Stanley Fink, who has shares in the oil and gas supermajor Shell, £50,000 from the gas turbines manufacturer Centrax, and £50,000 from Lord Michael Farmer, who has shares in the mining giant BHP. 

Labour’s Alex Sobel said: “the Tories can’t commit to action on the climate as they are in hock to oil and gas producers.”

The Scottish National Party’s Philippa Whitford said the revelations “highlights the whole issue of mega donors buying political influence.”

”Government policy should be for the benefit of ordinary people, not for a wealthy elite to manipulate,” she added.

Reform UK also received £50,000 from Fitriani Hay – a former Conservative Party donor whose husband is an ex-BP executive. 

From the 2019 general election to the start of the 2024 election campaign, the Tories had accepted at least £8.4 million from fossil fuel interests, climate science deniers, and highly polluting industries. The equivalent figure for Reform was £2.3 million, representing 92 percent of its funding over the period. 

Locke is the founder and former executive chairman of Abbot Group, a major oil and gas services company in the North Sea. He currently chairs the UK’s largest independent petrol station operator Motor Fuel Group, and serves as the non-executive chair of Well-Safe solutions, a firm that decommissions oil and gas wells. Locke has donated an additional £280,000 to the Conservatives since the 2019 general election. 

Lord Fink, a hedge fund manager and former Tory treasurer, is also a prolific Conservative donor, having given £4 million to the party since 2003, and £322,000 since December 2019. He holds shares worth at least £100,000 in Shell, Harbour Energy, and the oilfield services firm TechnipFMC, according to his register of interests. 

Fellow Tory peer Lord Farmer has donated an additional £317,000 to the party since the last election, and £8.8 million since 2001. Until April 2024, Farmer held shares in the fossil fuel giants Shell and BP, each worth more than £100,000. Farmer still holds shares in BHP Group, which has mining and oil assets. In 2022, BHP’s petroleum business merged with the energy company Woodside, with the new firm being 48 percent owned by BHP shareholders, creating a “global top 10 independent energy company”.

On top of the £50,000 it donated during the first week of the election campaign Centrax, a firm that manufactures gas turbines, has given £160,000 to the Tories since December 2019. 

Reform has been campaigning on an overtly anti-net zero platform, and one of its newest donors has family ties back to the oil and gas industry. 

Fitriani Hay’s husband James Hay is a former BP executive who worked for the oil firm for 27 years. Fitriani Hay had previously donated £660,000 to the Conservatives, including £50,000 to Boris Johnson in 2016, and £100,000 to Liz Truss during her 2022 Tory leadership campaign. 

At the time of the Truss donation, Hay said "I want to see us use more of our energy supply, including more oil and gas from the North Sea and nuclear power."

Labour’s Clive Lewis said: “Reform likes to portray itself as anti-establishment and against corrupt elites. But these financial ties reveal the truth: Reform is the party of the status quo, the voice of the elites, albeit one in disguise. They want wealth and power to stay just where it thank you very much.

“The same people who’ve been burning the planet, pouring sewage into our rivers, the price-gougers, the ones asset stripping our public services - they’re with them. Because if in doubt - simply follow the money. It always points to the truth.”

All the donors named in the article have been approached for comment. 

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