(as environment secretary)

“It is a kick in the teeth that a former secretary of state responsible for overseeing environmental degradation is now working for a firm that has been fined for these very acts.

“This comes as the Conservatives continue to tear up environmental regulations and leave communities to pick up the pieces of our withering countryside.” – LibDems

Henry Dyer www.theguardian.com 

A former UK environment secretary is to take a consultancy role with a waste management firm that had to pay £36,000 after an Environment Agency (EA) investigation found contamination of groundwater at a site.

George Eustice, who was the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs from February 2020 until September 2022, is joining Augean, a waste treatment company with sites across the UK.

The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) gave Eustice permission to take the role as a strategic adviser, responsible for providing “strategic counsel […] on how to navigate existing permitting and regulatory regimes’ processes [and] offering wider advice on the environment, social and governance issues”. He is banned from lobbying the government or using his contacts in Whitehall on behalf of Augean until September 2024.

Eustice declined to answer questions on how much he would be paid for his role and what experience he would rely on in his work for Augean. He said if a financial interest did arise it would be declared through the parliamentary register.

In Acoba’s advice letter, neither Eustice nor the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs made any mention of the investigation by the EA, an arms-length body of Defra.

The investigation resulted in Augean South, a subsidiary of Augean, paying £25,000 to an environmental charity in Northamptonshire, where the company’s site is located, as well as £11,058.90 to cover the costs of the EA inquiry.

The groundwater contamination was discovered during routine inspections by Augean in March 2020, with the agency finding the company had “negligently exceed its environmental permits”.

The EA investigated a discharge in 2020 that had a “short-term impact on wildlife and saw some amphibian species decline but populations recovered by the following summer”.

The agency said “vegetation also naturally improved after the pollution”, and it was satisfied that Augean had taken appropriate action to resolve the situation.

Eustice told Acoba that a meeting, held in April 2023, with one of the partners of a private equity firm that is a shareholder in Augean had led to the job offer being made.

Augean said neither it nor the private equity firm had any contact with Eustice before the conclusion of the agency’s undertaking.

Defra told Acoba the department had no “specific dealings” with Augean, but transparency records show other ministers had three roundtable meetings with the company in 2016 and 2017.

The Liberal Democrats have criticised Eustice’s appointment. Christine Jardine, the party’s Cabinet Office spokesperson, said: “It is a kick in the teeth that a former secretary of state responsible for overseeing environmental degradation is now working for a firm that has been fined for these very acts.

“This comes as the Conservatives continue to tear up environmental regulations and leave communities to pick up the pieces of our withering countryside.”

Rose Zussman, the policy manager at Transparency International UK, said: “This latest appointment should serve as a compelling reminder to government that, despite Acoba deploying stringent terms in this case, the public are likely to find the relationship between public service and private interests too close for comfort in the absence of better regulation.

“To mitigate this risk, the government should implement its existing commitments for better regulation of the revolving door, and bring forward plans for tighter controls on lobbying.”

Defra declined to comment.

We’re waiting for a non-existing train to take us to our closed school (next to the hospital with no doctors)

Proposals to loosen planning rules to make it easier to build houses “drives a coach and horses” through conservation efforts, a Dartmoor boss says.

BBC News www.bbc.co.uk

The government is consulting on new legislation, external that could allow landowners to convert barns into houses without planning permission.

Kevin Bishop, chief executive of the Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA), said the move could significantly weaken the authority’s conservation powers.

The BBC contacted the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for comment.

The proposals, aimed at “removing the time and money needed to submit a planning application”, could also remove a requirement that shopfronts should be vacant for at least three continuous months before they are turned into homes.

The plan has been linked to government attempts to find ways to increase housebuilding in the face of a national housing shortage

But Mr Bishop said the proposals favoured development over environmental protection.

“Basically it drives a coach and horses through the powers that we have to protect Dartmoor for future generations,” he said.

“On one level it’s a charter for speculators and developers – it’s not a charter for conservation and our communities.”

High street businesses the BBC spoke to in Ashburton, on Dartmoor’s southern edge, also expressed concern.

Tess Coulson, of Tess Designs, said: “We enjoy our town as it is and we don’t want it spoiled by a lot of different developments.”

Reuben Lenkiewicz, from Reuben Lenkiewicz Fine Art and Jewellery Gallery, said it was a “complicated issue”.

He said: “Obviously people need housing, however if you lose the uniqueness of a town like Ashburton, then you lose the reason for people wanting to go there and visit.”

Karen Dinnie, of Quirky Bird, said she preferred the DNPA to make local decisions “rather than somebody in Westminster”.

The consultation is open until 25 September.

Comment posted by Tim:

If I understand Chris Bryant MP correctly, from his excellent book ‘ Code of Conduct’, levelling up funding must indeed have the support of the constituency MP.

Well, its difficult to imagine a local MP not accepting funds, funds that will by the way, be less than the amounts government have cut from council direct funding.

But to whom should credit go? Some research suggests these funds go to help MPs whose seats are becoming a tad dodgy to hold on to rather than to those in greatest need.

Bryant’s work is well referenced as you might expect and he reports, ‘ of the forty five successful Towns Fund bids in 2021, seventeen went to ‘priority towns’, twenty-eight to ‘medium priority’ towns with seventy nine per cent to towns in Conservative held constituencies’ ( p110). Bryant goes into considerable detail about how and what influences these successful bids and one is left in no doubt that any award has little or nothing to do with need, nor the work of the sitting MP, but many other factors that are politically based. It seems the Tory world revolves around what we might think of as bribery in one form or another.

Hence I suggest, the credit for any additional East Devon funding lies with Claire Wright who turned a very strong 50 year old Conservative safe seat into one of the most marginal seats in the country. It was Claire and her team that put the frighteners on CCO with a level of decency and honesty they just didn’t comprehend. Their answer? Throw money our way and claim it was ‘Simon wot dun it for us’ as MP 30 bob might say.

We must not be fooled by misleading Tory propaganda that is now so desperate it dare not speak its name, nor clearly express its origins ( now often Tufton Street -https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63039558) and is ditching their traditional blue to appear to be other parties material and using their colours – and neither must we be taken in by Tory faux Indies.

Thank you Claire.

Yes on his “YouTube” account. You couldn’t really make it up could you? – Owl

www.independent.co.uk