Chris Skidmore Resigns
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
One down, 149 to go!
A former energy minister has quit over Rishi Sunak’s plans to boost oil and gas fields in the North Sea, ahead of a major Commons battle next week.
Chris Skidmore said he was resigning the Tory whip and stepping down as an MP in protest at the legislation, which will allow new oil and gas licences.
It means the Prime Minister faces yet another difficult by-election. Mr Skidmore’s majority in the seat of Kingswood, in Gloucestershire is 11,220, which looks vulnerable in the wake of recent Labour victories.
In a scathing attack on the Government’s green policies, he said “the future will judge harshly” anyone who backs the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which is due before the Commons on Monday.
Mr Skidmore said he had to resign because, as a former energy minister, he had signed the UK’s pledge to be net zero by 2050 into law and had also led a government review on how Britain could meet the pledge.
Perhaps the rest of his colleagues in the Conservative Environmental Network should follow suit, and allow their constituents to choose an MP who will put their interests first, instead of the WEF.
This is the same Chris Skidmore who is paid £80k a year by the Emissions Capture Company for advice about the “global energy transition and decarbonisation”!
No conflict of interest there then!
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/231211/skidmore_chris.htm
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I hope he keeps warm in these chilly days to come.
I hope he suffers terribly from the effects of cold, chilblains, frozen pipes, power outages. Just enough to give him an indication of Net Zero living
Perhaps he could get stuck in deep snow in his battery car and not trouble us again for the rest of his life.
What an ass
Here’s hoping the door hit’s him on the way out.
—then skid more on the ice.
I’m sure he has a nice lucrative ‘Directorship’ lined up at some Green-Con company !!
According to comments in the DT, he’s landed a lecturers position at a uni in the SW….Bath, I think. Teaching history. I hope he gets to cover the history of how cheap energy improved society during the Industrial Revolution.
Skidmore had been appointed to a professorship at the University of Bath to undertake research on sustainability and climate change
Yes Glen, but only until he has been out of government long enough to take a job exploiting his contacts. I hope Bath realise he does not intend to stay any longer than it takes their whitewash to dry.
Would be useful if someone composed a list of all MPs receiving cash from pro Zero Carbon related sources. Also details of payments received by other influential bodies like TV Companies, the Met Office, the newspapers and the Universities. We could then judge for ourselves just how much the media attention given to man made climate attention is driven by pure corruption.
That will be available in the MP records. It all has to be declared. It’s too risky not to.
I would support that idea. Minds can be bent for money.
Such payments ought not to be allowed.
My suggestion would be to allow one dinner per/month
with cab fare. The meal could include one glass of wine,
not Chateau Lafite Rothschild. Waitrose English Dry White
should be quite enough.
Presumably the £80,000 annual stipend being paid to Skidmore by the Emissions Capture Company will soften the blow of loss of MP salary.
Unless, the £80K was being paid to him in his capacity as MP, in which case he’ll be of no further use to ECC……
He seems to be getting 2 lots of £80k and another of £40k. I imagine been a Prof at Bath will be quite well remunerated too. Chair of the CCC adding £1,000 a day on a part time basis will seem like chump change, especially after tax – but the power would be enormous.
Aw shame diddles, Uncle Rishak, tell you a fib did he?
Absolutely sickening. Let me just flag down this passing tumbril…
Judging by a quick scan of the over 3,000 comments on the article, the most common response is “Good riddance”. It is no wonder the county is in such a mess when these ignorant and corrupt people are elected to positions of influence and power.
Hmm, no need to step down as an MP. He could have defected to the Lib Dems, Labour or Greens. I suspect he has a lucrative job lined up with the green blob.
To be fair it is well known in certain circles that renewables can turn water into wine. Another miracle is this “”That mission builds on an opportunity – that clean British energy is nine times cheaper than imported fossil fuels. It’s backed by investment – public and private – in wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen, green steel and carbon capture.”
This [coincidentally] was said by Saint Keir on the 5 Jan 2023 (an anniversary?)
https://labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/keir-starmer-new-years-speech/
Strewth!! Can somebody (IDAU, PMFB?) Please give us a clear, concise argument we can use against those who push this ridiculous line: ‘nine times cheaper….’). I know it had something to do with a one-time price differential due to……. But I can’t make a cogent argument of it even though I know it to be a lie.
Paul?
Try this from Net Zero Watch.
https://www.netzerowatch.com/why-dr-evans-is-wrong/
I will be updating my chart of prices to cover through the end of last year after the figures become available, but in essence all wind farms on ROCs get a premium of around £60/MWh for onshore and £120/MWh for offshore wind to market price (which much of the time is influenced by gas cost), while on average wind farms on CFDs have also been getting a premium to market price which you can see here:
https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/resources/scheme-dashboards/historical-dashboard/
No wonder he was so passionate about net zero, He had a vested interest, surely this is against the rules. It does seem to be the norm that MPs that are global warming alarmists are advising companies that benefit from the scam, Chris Huhne, Ed Davey and Gummer (lord debden) spring to mind.
Claire Coutinho does not seem to have any advising income at the moment, early days.
Absolutely no loss.
Don’t forget that J Hunt slipped £20bn into Carbon Caprure in last years budget. Mr Skidmore may be be after a big slice of that. Let’s check to see if in 6 months he is a full time employee of said Emissions Capture Company. i despair.
Text from Hunt’s Spring 2023 Budget speech:
“I am allocating up to £20 billion of support for the early development of CCUS, starting with projects from our East Coast to Merseyside to North Wales – paving the way for CCUS everywhere across the UK as we approach 2050.”
Allocated means the figure lacks substance. George Osborne scrapped £1bn support promised in 2015.
Also note that Skidmore has been pushing himself forward to chair the CCC. Bought and paid for…
An MP’s paid employment should be restricted to the parliamentary duties of an MP and the constituency duties of an MP.
FANTASYLAND : In the real world people are involved in family businesses, have valuable skills like being a medic, are writers/journos etc
As long as that extra work is confined to their spare time, that is OK
” As long as that extra work is confined to their spare time, that is OK ”
How would you “police” such an arrangement? Perhaps monthly timesheets… 😉
Deciding the best way to ensure the wellbeing of the nation and its people is not a full time job?
You are strawmanning “As long as that extra work is confined to their spare time, that is OK”
So I didn’t say that being an MP is not a fulltime job
I think you are saying that 100% of an MPs life is their MP job
But life is about compartmentalising,
All people spend some of their hours caring for their children or their parents etc.
Well I spent most of my life doing fairly ordinary fulltime jobs. With family commitments- children and parents getting old and ill, overtime at work I didn’t have time for second jobs apart from helping friends with things I was good at and they weren’t on a quid pro quo basis I hadn’t time for much else. Any MP who has time for one or more outside jobs isn’t giving value for money.
As the number of cconstituents is around 65K then I would hope that doing a decent job answering and following up questions and problems from them, on top of researching legislation, being on parliamentary and constituency committees on top of family commitments should keep an MP as busy as I was. But as we know from personnal experience many things are passed to researchers or the civil service department so there’s time for paid sinecures and they learn nothing.
I do get your point
A full MPs job has to be done and when they have second jobs it would be easy for the job to be only half done.
But when you elect an MP you are not electing a ONE person workforce.
They have job teams from the beginning Their MP job team and their political party office job where their role is to get rel-elected
Tghen when they become a minister they have a third office team
So in each role the actual MP should be responsible for a minority part of the work.
It’s entirely reasonable for well paid people to pay nannies and housekeepers £10/hour and then use the time for things that pay them £40/hour
I am reminded of a brilliant NZ headmaster I helped. He never did any extra school work outside school hours .. no marking, nothing ..cos he was very good at delegating.
Well, again going on personal experience from my working life none of the senior management had second or more additional permanent jobs. Despite having teams of people doing the actual work. In order to answer difficult questions from directors they either had to know what was happening or who to ask for precise details. That usually involved detailed knowledge so an explanation of a technical problem could be made to a non-technical person, financial to a non-finaancial person.
I’ve no wide knowledge of MPs outside paid employment but a lot does not seem to add anything to the MPs knowledge or the nation’s wellbeing.
Why on earth did we have an Energy Minister who only has an Oxford History degree. He obviously thinks he understands the Engineering and Science when he clearly cannot.
That he has resigned in a fit of pique over North Sea licenses proves his incompetence and we are grateful to him for leaving the stage. Never to return I hope.
Watch for him turning up soon in the city making millions in a plum job won on the basis of his inside government contacts. I wonder if they will have oil and gas associations?
All the previous energy ministers this centrury (and there have been lots of them) are completely unqualified for the job. They are advised by civil servants and employees of QUANGOs (such as the CCC) who are all unqualified to give advice. That is why our energy supply is in such a mess. Engineers and scientists with suitable qualifiactions and experience (such as Prof M Kelly) are ignored.
“That is why our energy supply is in such a mess.”
Not really. The problem is government control. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Skidmore’s replacement will be no better. Until you get the government’s hands off the energy industry, it’s going to be a mess.
The energy central planners have announced they are getting rid of energy. It’s not complicated.
‘the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which is due before the Commons on Monday.’
You need energy. You’ve got some offshore. It is clownish there will be debate. To a man, every MP who votes against it is using said energy. Sheer decadence. They sing “Nearer, My God, to Thee” as they vote to sink the ship.
I believe that the Civil Service actively avoids subject matter experts working in their areas. Gawd knows the logic behind that, probabaly something to do with the Cult of Management, can’t have underlings knowing more about something than their bosses.
Alok Sharma got a BSc in Applied Physics with Electronics from U. of Salford in 1988 and then qualified as a chartered accountant. He blew up Ferrybridge C in his attempt to climb the greasy pole. That ended in tears at COP26 thank goodness. ‘All political careers end in failure.’
Why would engineers advise on energy? It’s an Economics issue. Or maybe we should use the engineers that costed the Channel Tunel?
…Because Engineers are the only ones who understand real world economics.
The Channel Tunnel, like HS2 etc were costed by PPEs and Accountants. Neither of them have any understanding of real world economics. They were the ones who shipped our manufacturing to China and Energy supply to Russia.
Beyond all understanding by this Engineer.
Quite right. Economists have no idea what is needed to construct a reliable, affordable electricity network. The words synchronous, baseload, load follow, inertia etc would mean nothing to them.
You don’t need to understand anything to push an agenda; just to be able to shamelessly parrot what you are told and/or paid to say, with faux sincerity.
In fact, the less you know, the easier it is to lie. Your conscience is never bothered if you don’t know what you are talking about.
Just read the script.
Ministers, civil servants, the BBC, Labour, all have opinions then seek “experts” who agree with them.
DT readers are certainly delighted about his departure. Like others below, I am wondering how long it will be before he is “earning “ pots of oolah from the green scam industries
He probably already has since piloting May’s net zero bill. And he chaired the laughably called independent review of net zero. Like Dracula being asked to chair a review of blood banks. Shill to the core.
A by-election mean waste
Skidmore had previously said he wouldn’t be standing next time cos his constituency is being abolished
so all the waste of a bi-election for a new MP who’ll serve just a few months.
That is too difficult for an Oxford Arts grad to understand.
According to a DT comment, he needed to accept his new Uni Job before that could happen. A bye-election would have caused him inconvenience – as in, losing the new job. Then again, a new MP will get s great redundancy package for just a few months in the job.
Probably saw his local constituency polling numbers, weighed up the “conservative” party chances of forming any government for the next decade (non-existent), and decided to cash out while he still can by signalling his credentials for future employment to the rent seeking “green” establishment who will consider a “labour” party government business as usual.
So a tiny bit of good news for the New Year then.
Chris Skidmore should have been suspended from the House Of Commons for misleading Parliament back in 2019. He told them that a cost assessment of going from an 80% emissions reduction target to the 100% target (net zero) didn’t need to be carried out because such an assessment had not been previously performed in 2008 when the original 60% target had been arbitrarily raised to 80%.
“The push for net zero began in 2019, when the U.K.’s Climate Change Committee produced a report urging the government to adopt the policy. Part of the justification was historic climate guilt. In the words of committee chair Lord Deben, Britain had been “one of the largest historical contributors to climate change.” But the key economic justification for raising Britain’s decarbonization from 80% to 100% by 2050 – i.e., net zero – was “rapid cost reductions during mass deployment for key technologies,” notably in offshore wind. These illusory cost reductions, the committee claimed, “have made tighter emission reduction targets achievable at the same costs as previous looser targets.” It was green snake oil.
During the subsequent 88-minute debate in the House of Commons to write net zero into law, the clean-energy minister, Chris Skidmore, also asserted that net zero’s cost would be the same as the previous 80% target, which Parliament had approved in 2008. Challenged by a Labour MP on the absence of a regulatory-impact assessment, Skidmore misled Parliament, saying that there had been no regulatory-impact assessment in respect of raising the initial 60 percent target to 80 percent.
The regulatory-impact assessment that Skidmore says doesn’t exist gave a range of £324 billion to £404 billion when the target was raised to 80% – an estimate that excluded transitional costs – and cautioned that costs could exceed this range. Unlike today’s political pronouncements, the assessment was honest about the consequences of Britain acting if the rest of the world did not. “The economic case for the UK continuing to act alone where global action cannot be achieved would be weak,” it warned.”
Our MPs are now too afraid to challenge anything net-zero related in fear of the woke media backlash
He needed to be out of parliament before the new Uni semester, late election so he jumped!
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/chris-skidmore-joins-university-as-professor-of-practice-to-boost-sustainability-climate-research/
That’s not true that page is from June 2023
They called him professor then, and he gave a lecture in June
So he’s in employment there already.
“doctorate in modern British history at the University of Oxford.
Alongside his political career he has written several books on British history,”
So you can say he is a history academic
but surely he should titled as a Net Zero policy lecturer NOT a professor
He used to be Universities Minister and was paid tens of thousands of pounds for consultancy work in that field when he was minister for that field !
“Before his election in 2010, he taught history part-time at Bristol University.”
” where he is an honorary research fellow.”
(Not mentioned on Wikipedia)
“One of his themes has been internationalisation.
He was responsible for a new International Educatio/Innovation Strategy, which led to the return of a two-year post-study work visa and the introduction of a “global talent” visa.”
https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/fellows/chris-skidmore
Wiki makes no mention of a Doctorate.
No ,but I quoted from the Birbeck college link I just gave
So it is probably true
It’s on the Bath Uni website too
Ross Clark also says Good riddance in his Telegraph article “Good riddance to Chris Skidmore – China’s useful idiot”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/06/good-riddance-to-chris-skidmore-chinas-useful-idiot/
And according to Ross Clarke, Skidmore has landed himself a professorship at the University of Bath, focussing on net zero policy. Corruption and idiocy pays off well in the UK.
Chris Skidmore is a graduate in Modern History. He has written books on Tudor and medieval history.
In other words he does not have the capacity to critically evaluate ideas in energy policy. How these people end up in such unsuitable positions is beyond me.
Well, perhaps not.
He won’t be missed.
Skidmore, Skidmore … Ah yes, one thinks of post-diarrhoea “skid marks”, does one not?
Resigning ex-minister Chris Skidmore wrong on climate, says Jeremy Hunt
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67900935
He’s not alone among MPs there.
I wrote this to some colleagues. For those not close to the manipulation of policy and the CEN funded with 10s of Millions by Bloomberg and some Brit traitor to the people beginning with H. The one behind JSO, etc. (I’m sure he’d not be missed) . Net zero has a demonstrably and entirely negative impact on EVERY measure of the interests of the people of the UK. See how they conspire to defraud us and change our laws to profit themselves ……
BEGINS
Quick rough thought re Skidmark’s resignation people may have missed. He is a shoe in for Gummer at the CCC over the better more rational candidates to replace Gummer. But he is a clueless climate screamer on the make from the climate rackets as is Gummer. Note Stanley J is another shill for the CCC grouping.
There are better more practically minded/independent energy knowledgeable candidates in the frame to Chair the CCC. But the CEN will want a screamer extremist who will subsidise any nut job pseudo solution that can’t work very expensively. Son of Gummer. If Skidmark resigns & goes to the Lords, even if he is lay, not a Lord, he can fill Gummers slime filled corrupt shoes promoting Agenda 21 for his mates and his own profit and recommend more net zero laws to make Bloomberg/Hoyt’s? mates richer at the people’s expense. Not sure how this works, but its obvious to me, that Sunak could stop dithering and do the wrong thing, and appoint Skidmark CCC Chair as qrid pro quo to the CEN for support pre election????. Possibly. They are all honourable men.
In haste Just sayin’. B
ENDS
And now he’ll be indoctrinating young undergraduates at Bath University on climate change
In his speech to the people Kneeler Flip Flop Starmer was concerned about integrity in politics but it now seems that he has been lying about wasting £28bn a year of taxpayers cash on green bollocks and on our generation being carbon neutral in just six years although it will be only five years from possibly taking office. From the off the figure in the first year included £10bn the Tories were going to waste on it. And then Plagiarist Reeves changed the terms so that the money would only be spent once the economy was growing and this might be halfway through the term. Now it seems that Kneeler was not that keen on the green crap and is trying to unwind what is one of their flagship policies. Messrs kHunt and Sushi could pull a neat trick in giving back any surplus in taxation to taxpayers leaving Labour having no option but to raise taxes if they want to fund the green stuff.
I wonder who is daft enough to invest in Carbon capture?
Obviously anybody spending other peoples money – like the government.
Global Insight Exchange seems to be a personal vehicle for Stephen Dorrell, former Conservative MP and minister who jumped ship to Change UK and then the Lib Dems. He has an interesting slightly chequered history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Dorrell
Emissions Capture Ltd is actually a holding company used to funnel cash into undisclosed subsidiaries. It has changed its registered address twice since it was at 8-10 Hill Street. In turn it is owned by Infrasalience Ltd, with both companies having a very international cast of directors by both nationality and residence.
A strange set of friends.
I am a bit late to the party, but in the hope that I am not too late: