There is now growing unease that SDLP Minister Nichola Mallon has still
not commented publicly on perceived conflict of interest concerns
surrounding her husband working for EHA Exploration - one of the
current applicants for a petroleum license that could lead to
widespread fracking in Northern Ireland.
Click here to see the full breach of Ministerial Code of Conduct complaint against Minister Nichola Mallon
Name
of Minister's husband removed from EHA website
Yesterday, October 28th 2020, EHA removed the name of
Minister Mallon's husband - Brendan Scott - from its website, with no
explanation, in what is being perceived as a cynical move to
hide all traces of his links with the company instead of the Minister making a clear
statement on the issue. Up to yesterday, EHA had Minister Mallon's husband Brendan Scott as the "dedicated
Community Engagement Manager throughout the exploration process, who
will be the first point of contact for anyone with queries". However, EHA has kept the same address on its website where Mr. Scott works and Brendan Scott is equally the named "Liaison officer" on official documents submitted to the Department for the Economy.
Panel
for Ministerial Standards
Minister Mallon is currently avoiding a formal complaint of a breach of
the Ministerial
Code of Conduct in her capacity as Minister
being
processed due to the fact that the Panel for Ministerial Standards to
deal with such complaints has still not been set up by the First and
Deputy-First Ministers of Northern Ireland. This has wider consequences
because it means that any Minister involved in Cronyism and
Clientelism in Northern Ireland may avoid any investigation or
oversight from the Standards Commissioner in the Northern Ireland
Assembly which is unacceptable in this day and age. Transparency, good
governance, public health, a good envrionment and transparent
evidence-based decision making are the victims of this loophole
in code of conduct enforcement for Ministers.
The concern is that Minister Mallon's husband, Brendan Scott, is or was
working for EHA Exploration Limited and that the Minister may not have
declared a possible conflict of interest if this is the case. There is
huge sensitivity surrounding the issue of petroleum licensing and the
critical role that Minister Mallon and her Department have in
maintaining, defending and enhancing the existing 2015 effective ban on
fracking emanating from her Department on both health and environmental
grounds. In the interest of public trust in the Minister, it
is imperative that there is no perceived conflict of interest on her
part in any decisions or actions she takes as Minister.
Campaigners are asking if there was a possible undeclared conflict of
interest by Minister Mallon in both her role as Minister and in her recent announcement on
her proposal to remove permitted development rights for petroleum
exploration, both of which have direct impacts on the two current
petroleum licence applicants - Tamboran and EHA. They are
asking: if the Minister had an undeclared conflict of
interest, then would it have influenced both her decisions to act and
her decisions not to act on certain matters regarding petroleum
licensing?
In the 'Guidance for Ministers'
documentation published in March 2020, there is an obligation on
Ministers to ensure there is no perceived conflict of interest in the
carrying out of their public duties.
Ministers must ensure, under the Ministerial Code of Conduct, that
no conflict arises, or could be perceived to arise, between a
Minister’s public duties and their private interests, financial or
otherwise, and complying with rules concerning conflicts of interest;
not use information gained in the course of their service for personal
gain; nor seek to use the opportunity of public service to promote
their private interests.
Furthermore, former Minister, Mark H. Durkan made some very
disturbing comments on Minister Mallon's husband Brendan
Scott on the EcoLeaks
Facebook page on Sunday last, when he stated:
"Her
husband works for a pr company who have been commissioned by another
company who have been commissioned by a completely different
Department."
EHA is a private company applying for a petroleum licence in Northern
Ireland and we are now very concerned about the implications of what
Mark H. Durkan wrote. If he is stating that Nichola Mallon's husband
works for a "completely
different Department", we are concerned that
this may be a different and as-yet-unknown government department.
Context of
Conflict of Interest Issues
No
Involvement in DfE Study removing Effective Ban on Fracking -
The Failure to Act
There are considerable grounds for concern that if the Minister had an
undeclared conflict of interest with EHA would it have influenced both
her decisions to act and her decisions not to act on certain matters
regarding petroleum licensing? Economy Minister, Diane Dodds, stated
in the Northern Ireland Assembly on October 13th, 2020, as a
unanimous motion was being passed against an onshore oil and gas
industry in Northern Ireland, that she was still pushing ahead with
commissioning "within the coming days" the GBP 75,000 so-called study which will undermine the effective ban on fracking
in Northern Ireland. That ban on fracking and unconventional
hydrocarbon extraction is under the responsibility of the
Infrastructure Department in the Strategic Planning Policy Statement.
And yet, not one voice from Minister Mallon's Infrastructure
Department has spoken out against what campaigners have called a
"scandalously-biased" report, or even demanded input into the terms of
reference of what is clearly, at the very least, a cross-cutting
decision directly impacting on the Infrastructure Department as well as
the Department of the Economy.
Campaigners claim that the oil and gas industry has so much money and
power that it is undermining the democratic work of
government. Their concern is that if the oil and gas industry
is putting money directly into the houses and on to the kitchen tables
of the politicians who have to make decisions concerning that industry
then those perceived conflicts have to be declared up front and dealt
with head on. They say that people have no choice but to place their
trust in politicians that any of the decisions impacting on them are
made in the public interest.
We need to understand why there has been no input into the
commissioning of this cross-cutting report from any of the other
impacted Northern Ireland Departments such as the Department of
Health, the Department of Agriculture, Environment &
Rural Affairs and especially from the Department of Infrastructure.
This failure to act ultimately risks binging the petroleum
decision-making process of the entire Northern Ireland Executive into
disrepute.
To our knowledge, Minister Mallon did not engage at any stage on the
terms of reference of the Department for Economy study on fracking
policy, which risks undermining the effective fracking ban which is
under the responsibility of her department in the Strategic
Planning Policy Statement (SPPS). Section 6.157 of the SPPS states:
We ask if the Minister has
failed in her duty to ensure that any study which could affect the
fracking ban was independent and cross cutting and would have to prove
there was no adverse impact on public health and the environment? We
ask if Minister Mallon has facilitated the Petroleum Branch, with
differing objectives to her Department, by allowing it full control of
the research?
The research should not be controlled inhouse by
the petroleum branch of the Department for the Economy (DfE). Research into Petroleum Licensing whose terms of
reference are controlled uniquely by the Department cannot logically be
considered independent. DfE has stated that its “policy
objective is to maximise successful and expeditious exploration and exploitation
of Northern Ireland’s oil and gas resources, and all decisions will be made
with regard to that policy. DfE has no expertise on the health or Climate impacts of fracking. It is
only focussing on the money to be made, while completely ignoring the people-focussed
objectives of the 2019
Outcomes Delivery Plan agreed in the Programme for Government commitments.
We ask if the Minister’s actions and inactions have
undermined the work of government? The most worrying concern
of all is that Minister Mallon needs to address the question of whether
or not this was influenced by her husband's links with EHA.
The decision on the granting of petroleum licenses is a cross-cutting
issue which is being brought to the Executive. If Minister
Mallon is unable to vote in the Executive on climate issues or
petroleum licences because of her husband's work with one of the
licence applicants, EHA then the SDLP will have lost its voice in the
Executive on fracking in Northern Ireland and Minister Mallon
will not be able to protect the effective ban on fracking under her
Department's responsibility. That is an issue of grave
concern to everyone on this island.
Removal
of Permitted Development Rights (PDR) - The Sleight of Hand
On October 5th, 2020 Minister Mallon announced the removal of permitted
development rights (PDR) for gas exploration in
Northern Ireland.
On the face of it, this announcement by Minister Mallon seemed to have
been a move against EHA and Tamobran.
However, on closer analysis, removing PDR rights for EHA and Tamboran has the following strategic consequences:
- By creating a regulatory
planning process for gas exploration in Northern Ireland, the Minister
is pre-empting a decision by the Executive on the current licence
applications by Tamboran and EHA and a gas exploration policy
decision in Northern Ireland in general - decisions she will be unable
to take part in if she is conflicted due to her husband’s links with
EHA.
- By announcing the removal of
permitted development rights (PDR)
for gas exploration, Minister Mallon is now actively involved in
regulating the petroleum industry in Northern Ireland and is sending
out a clear signal to the market that Northern Ireland is open for gas
exploration.
- By providing for a new
planning process per gas well she is ignoring the cumulative adverse
public health impacts of thousands of gas wells in Northern Ireland as
each application is assessed individually.
- Most seriously, by creating a
planning process for gas exploration in Northern Ireland, Minster
Mallon, with no supporting research, is either implying that it is
possible to have a gas industry in Northern Ireland without Fracking -
as asserted by Minister Dodds in the
Assembly on October 13th, 2020 - or else she is undermining
her Department’s own effective ban on Fracking. Either
way, it seems that Minister Mallon's permitted
development rights (PDR) proposal is to the direct financial
advantage of EHA, the company her husband represents. That raises huge
governance issues and is an issue the Minister must address in the
interest of transparency.
- It must be highlighted that it
is now very clear, from listening to the geologists, that hydrocarbons
cannot be exploited in Northern Ireland at commerical levels without Fracking. Both the
Departments for Economy and Infrastructure are taking one small part of
the process and using that to obfuscate and misdirect the people. That
is the real collusive corruption of the petroleum decision-making
process that is currently taking place in Northern Ireland.
Minister Mallon must address these perceived conflict of interest
questions in the public interest.
On the official Petroleum License application documents for EHA on the Department for Economy website on May 7th, 2019, Annex C - Company Brief, explicity shows Brendan Scott as the EHA "Liaison Officer" in the EHA Organisation Chart.
The EHA Organization Structure submitted on or before May 7th 2019 to the Department for Economy
Updated
website removing name of Brendan Scott:
Before updating on Ocbober 28th, 2020:
After EHA updated website on Ocbober 28th, 2020 to remove links to Brendan Scott, Minister Mallon's husband.:
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