Archived press release

Labour's business backers: are they ethical?

4 June 2001

BOUGHT AND SOLD

Labour's Corporate Backers & Their Environmental Record

The Labour Party has been funded or backed by some of the biggest companies in Britain, many with dodgy ethical and environmental records. Friends of the Earth's analysis of corporate political sponsors, published today, gives details of the companies,their donations and their environmental records. They include:

Enron

Donated around £30,000 to Labour in 1997 and 1998. £15,000 for “Pre Gala Dinner drinks” at Labour Conference 1998. £12,500 for Gala Dinner at the Hilton in 1997.

In 1995, Enron was named by “Multinational Monitor” as one of the world's worst ten companies. In 1998, at Dhobal (near Bombay) villagers protesting at pollution and excess water use at an Enron power plant were beaten by police and Enron security staff. Enron is the only company (as opposed to Government) to be the subject of an Amnesty International report.

In Florida the company fined for pollution which the State Government said was “the worst environmental damage from a single project” it had ever seen. The Chief Executive of Enron, Jeffrey Skilling, once said of his employees “You must cut jobs ruthlessly by 50 or 60%. Depopulate. Get rid of people. They gum up the works”.

GUS

Donation from Director Jonathan Charkham. In August 2000. FOE criticised Argos Distributors Ltd for use of phthaltes, alkylphenols, bisphenol a and brominated flame retardants in its plastic toys, computers, TVs and Hi Fis. Argos was also criticised by FOE and Global Witness in 1999 for its sale of garden furniture sources from pristine Cambodian rainforest, despite claims of Vietnamese origin..

ICI

Director Lord Simpson, given peerage by Tony Blair, signed Labour's Business Backers letter. ICI was top of FOE's list of emitters of cancer causing chemicals in 1998 and 1999. A report on ICI Runcorn published in April 1998 showed that there were regular illegal releases of pollutants from the site, including mercury, chloroform, trichloroethane and trichlorobenzene. FOE has details of numerous other pollution incidents involving the company.

Kelda Group

John Napier, Executive Chairman, signed the Business Backers letter. Kelda Group owns Yorkshire Water. Yorkshire Water was fined £2,000 with £2,214 costs by Huddersfield magistrates on 12th January 2001 for polluting the river Colne with sewage.Yorkshire water and Welsh water were fined £12,000 and £14,000 respectively, after being convicted of supplying water unfit for human consumption.

Manchester Airport

Paid “more than £5,000" to the Labour Party in 1998 and provided £20,000 for the Gala Dinner 1999. The Airport is currently expanding to a 2nd runway, against major environmental protests. The 2nd runway will destroy over 1000 acres of Greenbelt land,42 ponds, 15 km of hedgerow and 7 acres of mature woodland. 50,000 extra vehicles per day would be generated in the area.

Northern Foods

Chairman Lord Haskins donated £10,000 in 2000, at least £5,000 a year since 1992 including £14,000 in 1997. According to the Environment Agency 'Hall of Shame' from April 1999, during 1998, subsidiary Convenience Foods Ltd received fines amounting to £7,500 for pollution incidents and was the 2nd biggest offender in the'Wholesale/Distribution' sector. Convenience Foods Ltd of Dronfield was fined £7,500 in 1998 for pollution offences and was fifth in the Environment Agency's league table of polluters in the North East Region.

Raytheon Systems

Paid the Labour Party more than £5,000"for sponsorship in 1997. In June 1999 they were awarded an £800 million contract from the MOD for their ASTOR battlefield radar spy-plane system. In 1995 John McDermott, the former Raytheon sales manager,admitted receiving more than $250,000 in bribes.

Sainsbury's

Lord Sainsbury gave £2 million to the Labour Party in 1996, £1 million in 1997 and £2 million in 1999. He gave a further £2 million in January 2001. Sainsbury's paid the Labour Party more than £5,000 for sponsorship in 1997. Lord Sainsbury was given his peerage in 1997 and made Government Minister for Science in 1998, at which point he resigned as Chairman of the Sainsbury's supermarket chain. He put his £1.3 billion worth of shares (a 13% stake in Sainsbury's) into a 'blind trust' run by Judith Portrait of Portrait Solicitors (who have been solicitors for Sainsbury's since 1988).

During his six years as Chairman of Sainbury's, he championed Genetically Modified (GM) food, although since his resignation the company has dropped GM food completely.

He owns 2 genetics companies, Diatech and Innotech Investments (his shares in these companies were also put into a 'blind trust' when he became a minister). He backed the study of Genetically Modified organisms (GMO) through his Gatsby Charitable Foundation (Judith Portrait is a trustee), set up in 1987 and which gives £2 million a year to the Sainsbury Laboratory/John Innes Institute in Norwich.

Since 1998 the Sainsbury Laboratory has also received 6 Government grants, worth £1.1 million, from the Biotechnology and Biological Research Council (BBSRC).

The BBSRC is part of the Government Office of Science and Technology, which answers to Sainsbury as Science Minister and has won an extra £50 million in funding since he became Minister. Officially he is supposed to leave the room when GMOs are discussed at meetings. The Chairman of the BBSRC is another of Tony Blair's friends, Peter Doyle, former Executive Director of biotech company Zeneca (which also gives money to the John Innes Institute).

When Lord Sainsbury travelled to America in 1999, to research a report into Biotechnology, he was accompanied by members of the BioIndustry Association, a lobbying group for companies involved in GM food (the DTI helped pay their costs). Christine Soden is the Chair of their Finance Committee. Diatech is a member of the BioIndustry Association.8 days before he became Science Minister he loaned Diatech money to buy a £2 million office in Westminster.

Diatech have registered a patent for a genetic sequence taken from the tobacco mosaic virus, considered essential for enhancing the development of protein in a GMO, which is used in most GM foods worldwide. Innotech Investments,solely funded by Lord Sainsbury (he was a Director until becoming a minister), has £20 million worth of investments. It owns Floranova, a Norfolk-based company that develops GMOs. Floranova in turn owns the Floranova Service Corporation in America, Floranova SA in Costa Rica and Elite Seeds, a flower seed and young plant marketing company based in Norfolk. Innotech is a major investor in Paradigm Genetics, an American company.

Other companies listed by FOE and backing Labour include British Aerospace, Marconi, Lonmin (formerly Lonhro) and Nestle.

Commenting, FOE Executive Director Charles Secrett said:

“Many of New Labour's big business backers have poor ethical and environmental records. How can the public be confident that this support - which includes some enormous corporation donations - does not influence Labour's behaviour in Government? Our analysis exposes the seamy underside of New Labour's attempt to reinvent itself as the Party of business.

The full analysis of Labour and Tory business backers is available from FOE Press Office

If you're a journalist looking for press information please contact the Friends of the Earth media team on 020 7566 1649.

Published by Friends of the Earth Trust