Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng held undisclosed meetings with senior figures from Saudi Arabia’s oil firms when he was business secretary, it has emerged.
Documents released to The Guardian following Freedom of Information Act (FoI) requests show that Mr Kwarteng held talks with oil chiefs during a two-day visit to the kingdom in January.
He met the chief executive of Saudi Aramco, the chief executive of Sabic and the chair of Alfanar Group, with some of his flights in the kingdom covered by Saudi Aramco.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) had not declared the details of Mr Kwarteng’s discussions when transparency documents on ministerial meetings were originally published.
A government spokesperson blamed an “administrative oversight” for the initial failure to declare the talks in the usual way, with records being updated.
Mr Kwarteng’s itinerary is said to have included a meeting with Saudi Aramco’s chief executive Amin Nasser. Minutes written by an official reportedly included a discussion titled “Aramco flight talk”, though some points were redacted.
The meeting with Mr Nasser was first revealed last month by Graham Stuart, a minister at the business department, in response to a parliamentary question from Green MP Caroline Lucas.
The minister said Mr Kwarteng’s flights to and from Saudi Arabia were met by the government, but added: “Internal flights to the Shaybah oil field were arranged by the Saudi Energy Ministry and also provided by Aramco.”
Ms Lucas called for the details of all Mr Kwarteng’s meetings in Saudi Arabia to be “fully” disclosed, criticising the lack of transparency.
“Just as Kwasi Kwarteng sends a wrecking ball to our economy, he refuses to come clean about his dealings with Saudi oil giants who are wrecking our climate too,” she told The Independent.
The MP added: “If our then energy secretary, now chancellor, has failed to declare his meetings properly, how are we to believe that our climate policies have not been squandered, our energy security has not been compromised, and Saudi Arabia’s appalling human rights record has not been brushed under the carpet?”
A briefing document given to Mr Kwarteng, disclosed under the FOI release, is said to have pointed to recent progress in Saudi human rights.
The government’s website states that transparency details had been “updated with further details of five engagements carried out during the ministerial visit to Saudi Arabia in January 2022”.
The website adds: “These were originally omitted due to an administrative error and have now been added in line with our commitment to transparency.”
A spokesperson said: “The omission of meetings with companies arose due to an administrative oversight. The data is being updated to reflect those meetings. There was clearly no intention to withhold this information as hospitality received from companies was declared at the time.”
They added: “Travel to and from Saudi Arabia was arranged by the British government. These short, internal flights within Saudi Arabia were arranged by the Saudi government and have been properly and publicly declared, as is required.”
