Rachel Reeves accepted donation from Lord Donoughue, linked to local weather sceptic group GWPF

Rachel Reeves accepted a £10,000 donation from a supporter linked with local weather sceptic teams, shortly earlier than Labour ditched its pledge to speculate £28bn a 12 months in inexperienced vitality.

Labour’s shadow chancellor acquired the cash from Lord Donoughue in January to assist finance campaigning in her constituency, Leeds West, based on her parliamentary register of pursuits.

Lord Donoughue, a Labour peer, is a former chairman of Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a thinktank based by former Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson to look at the economics of local weather change.

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GWPF publishes briefing papers that query local weather experiences by our bodies such because the Met Office and the United Nations’ IPCC local weather science group.

A Labour supply: “Lord Donoughue is a long-standing friend of Rachel’s and Labour peer. She does not share his views on climate change and has spoken of her determination to be Britain’s first green chancellor.”

Sky News understands the shadow chancellor intends to maintain the donation.

Lord Donoughue informed the Telegraph, which first reported the story: “The donation was totally unrelated. I haven’t been involved in those £28bn discussions at all. And quite rightly so.

“She wanted assist staffing her constituency. I believe she’s essential to the Labour Party and the nation. She’s so wise and she or he’s acquired such good political and financial judgment.”

Lord Donoughue says he’s “not a climate-change denier”, however questions the prices of insurance policies.

In 2013, whereas a director of GWPF, he informed the House of Lords: “I should make it clear I am not a climate-change denier -an offensive word, from which I have suffered. I am a questioner.

“I settle for that the globe is warming mildly, 0.8% of 1 diploma in 131 years… the warming is sort of actually linked to carbon emissions and human exercise, and I help curbing these emissions in a measured means.”

Bob Ward, coverage director for the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment on the London School of Economics (LSE), stated Lord Donoughue is “part of the small band of noisy ‘lukewarmers’ who oppose effective climate policy”.

“He shows that while most of the ideological opposition to climate policy in the UK is embedded in the fringes of the political right, there are some on the fringes of the political left who also share unscientific views about climate change.”

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