Bishop Hill More Deben
Aug 20, 2012 Commenters on the Severn Barrage thread have been doing some very interesting work on Lord Deben's financial interests. Although the great man has apparently indicated that he will take unspecified steps to ensure that his financial interests do not impinge upon his work as chairman of the Climate Change Committee, the sheer scale of those interests starts to look, well, extraordinary.
First off, Terry S noted the various shareholdings of Corlan Hafren, the company that is to build the Severn Barrage.
Shareholdings of Corlan Hafren:
There are 8704 shares comprising of 8700 non-voting shares and 4 voting shares.
3400 + 1 John Richard Forbes Bazley
2200 + 1 Halcrow Group Limited
1100 + 1 Sancroft International Limited
2000 + 1 Joseph Hannah & Nicholas MacMillanI've no idea who they are but it appears that Lord Deben doesn't have any shares.
Fortunately, it was quickly spotted that Sancroft International is a company owned by Lord Deben and his family. SimonCM replied:
The old pea and thimble trick .... The erstwhile Lord is a director, and 1/6th shareholder of Sancroft International Limited. The other shareholders are all Gummers (i.e. Lord Deben's family including wife, son and three not easily identifiable through Google).
Therefore, by my maths, Lord Deben owns 2% of Corlan Hafren and the Gummers as a collective own about 12%. Not bad when you're proposing a £30bn project!
(Note that I haven't checked the figures above). Let's say, conservatively, that if it gets the go-ahead, this £30bn construction project is worth £32bn. With a £2bn profit, as 12% stake would be worth £240m. Of course, without the go-ahead it's worth nothing.
Decisions, decisions for the Selwyn-Gummer family.
Bishop Hill
Another interesting observation from Leo Hickman
also interesting that Letwin met with Sancroft last year... http://whoslobbying.com/uk/sancroft_international_limited … and Letwin is now reporting on barrage to PM
Bishop Hill
Deben's response per Leo H:
"All taken back by the company. No ongoing connection with Sancroft or me"
I wonder what "taken back" means. They did a share buyback or something?
Bishop Hill
More from Leo:
Deben sponsored EDM in '07 calling for Severn Barrage, which was signed by Davey, Huhne (+ Stringer :-) ) http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2006-07/1476 …
Reader Comments (63)
The above appointments/terminations are for Corlan Hafren just in case anybody hasn't being paying attention.
The key problem I perceive is that these people are so apparently arrogant they haven't bothered to take the most elementary precautions against discovery. Why didn't they use offshore trusts like Robinson and Maxwell?
Peter Stroud (and others)
We really must get to grips with this or we make ourselves look ill-informed and therefore prime candidates to be ignored or worse.
The Energy and Climate Change Committee is one of the Select Committees of the House of Commons whose remit is to provide some oversight for government departments — in this case the Department for Energy and Climate Change.
The Committee on Climate Change (to give it its proper title) is an "independent" body set up to advise the government on matters relating to climate change and greenhouse gas reduction.
One is chaired by Tim Yeo MP; the other will be chaired by Lord Deben unless his blatant conflict of interest can force him either to resile himself or David Cameron suddenly grows a pair and starts to make sane decisions on energy and climate change.
They are not the same thing and we do ourselves no favours by (apparently) refusing to understand that.
[Sorry if I come across a bit severe on this one, Andrew, but this is, I think, the third time I have made this point and checking it if people don't believe me is hardly rocket science]
Oh see how they run once the light is shone into the dark corners!
Guido should have a field day with this, what about the MSM!
One uncommented aspect to the Lord Deben story is the rather obvious point that Lord 'Adair' Turner will be stepping down as the existing Chair of the Committee on Climate Change.
Non-UK readers might not be aware that this [self snip] is also the Chairman of the Financial Standards Authority.
It is entirely fair and appropriate to point out that he appears to have been been an unmitigated disaster in both roles, as brazenly clueless about the climate as he was incompetent and malicious as the Financial Watchdog who never barked and who certainly didn't give a monkeys about the little people so long as his high profile chums in the Wunch of Bankers were raking it in.
Utterly contemptible.
As a point of information a "dormant" company is a technical term in respect of the law and practice applying to companies incorporated in the UK. Simply, a dormant company is one that has no bookkeeping transactions of its own to report or be entered in the company's books. However, a dormant company can act as the agent of a person (ie including another company) and, in that capacity, own or control assets on behalf of another person and even operate a bank account as agent or trustee. Such transactions done on another's behalf would not of themselves give rise to an entry in the books of the dormant comany.
Accordingly, don't be fooled by the existence of a "dormant" company or the filing of dormant company accounts at Companies House into thinking that a company described as technically "dormant" necessarily means "inactive" or has no assets. A dormant company can be very active indeed and able to control considerable assets.
Martin Brumby
Turner also wrote (with Chris Huhne and others) a startingly stupid pamplet
http://cep.lse.ac.uk/layard/RL334D.pdf
urging the UK to join the euro: a position from which, I believe, he has never resiled.
I downloaded the company accounts. It has no assets. The only capital it has is the called up share capital of £91. If it has acted as an agent for another company then it hasn't billed for it (no debtors).
TerryS
"It has no assets"
That does not mean that it does not control any assets: it only means that it's got no assets of its own. As to acting as "agent": if the company charges agent's fees it's no longer classified as "dormant" although the accounts it would file under those circumstances would not disclose who or what the company is agent for.
There is an article by John R Bradley in the current Spectator bewailing the paucity of decent candidates for the Governorship of the Bank of England when the vacancy arises next year. I quote (the article is behind a paywall so I can't provide a link, I'm afraid)
It's not just the BoE that is a sort of rest home for the moderately great and the slightly less than good (allegedly). Precisely what qualifications Deben has for this job it is hard to ascertain except that setting up committees to tell government what it wants to hear and appointing chairmen who can be guaranteed to come up with the goods is nothing new. In the past there used to be a certain subtlety, however, and at least the Committee would have had enough sceptics on board to make for a decent minority report now and then.I wonder how the Architects and Design Engineers got paid?
October 2010, The Severn Barrage
re Peter Stroud on one.. accident, but two... carelessness
Wasn't Ian Fleming's take (Goldfinger)
once - happenstance, twice - coincidence, three times ;enemy action ?
Since Tony Pryor (Halcrow chairman) was a director (until yesterday!) and Halcrow was the second largest shareholder - presumably Corlan Hafren was set up in 2010 as a Halcrow "front" company to promote the scheme.
At the time, Halcrow handled the PR and they launched the idea with a couple of websites - which appear to have disappeared now.
http://www.ice.org.uk/News-Public-Affairs/Media-and-press-centre/ICE-response-to-severn-barrage-announcement
Two of the other shareholders Joseph Hannah & Nicholas MacMillan appear to be lawyers from this firm:-
http://www.hannahmould.com/index.php
The guy with the largest shareholding, John Richard Forbes Bazley, seems to be a Wales based property entrepreneur with a string of companies to his name and a rather chequered business background:-
http://company-director-check.co.uk/director/908757241
Apparently he was bankrupt in 1987:-
www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/50893/supplements/5110/page.pdf
….. and possibly again in 1995:-
www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/54125/pages/10952/page.pdf
So - a dormant company with a net worth of £91 and an ever changing cast of shareholders and directors - including a politician with a clear conflict of interest, his wife and kids and an ex-bankrupt.
All seems a bit mickey mouse for a "consortium" which impressed David Cameron enough to put it in charge of Europe's biggest ever construction project - doesn't it?