Exclusive:Scottish Government accused of dozens of ministerial code breaches over controversial fossil fuel plant plans

The Scotsman has learned First Minister John Swinney’s administration has been served with a formal complaint over its handling of a planning application for a new gas-fired power station in Aberdeenshire – a development that critics warn will cause widespread pollution and further jeopardise efforts to meet climate and emission reduction targets.

Friends of the Earth (FoE) Scotland has written to Mr Swinney alleging 28 separate breaches of the ministerial code. They implicate Mr Swinney himself, several of his Cabinet secretaries and ministers, and two former first ministers. The charity alleges a “deeply troubling pattern of behaviour”, with claims of ministers briefed by civil servants to offer their support for the proposed Peterhead fossil fuel plant.

The official complaint also raises searching questions around the Government’s lack of transparency in its dealings with the energy giants behind the power plant plans. FoE Scotland claims there were 16 meetings between ministers and the developers, SSE and Equinor, where the Government’s records are either missing or not available.

They include a meeting that took place in September last year between two senior executives at SSE and Gillian Martin, the-then energy minister, who is the acting Cabinet secretary for net zero and energy. While SSE submitted brief details of the meeting to the Scottish lobbying register, the Scottish Government said it had “no records” of the engagement at all following a Freedom of Information request by FoE Scotland.

In all, Government ministers and civil servants met with SSE executives on 50 occasions between February 2022 and December last year, with 11 such meetings with Equinor executives. FoE Scotland’s complaint says the repeated meetings with developers – the equivalent of more than one a fortnight at a time when the planning process was live – coincided with the views of objectors being “neglected”.

The complaint by FoE Scotland will raise significant questions over how ministers and civil servants have dealt with a major planning application that is already engulfed in controversy. The proposals by the two energy giants would create an additional gas burning power station next to the existing Peterhead power station. It has already been branded as Scotland's biggest climate polluter and the new plant would see fossil fuels burned for electricity well past 2045, the legally binding target date for Scotland to achieve net zero.

SSE and Equinor say the new station, which would have a generating capacity of up to 910MW, would be equipped with carbon capture technology, capable of removing around 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions every year, allowing it to replace older, carbon-intensive generation on the electricity system, and back up renewable energy with “flexible, low-carbon” power.

However, there is widespread opposition to the plans among environmentalists and climate campaigners. In May, a coalition of scores of groups, including Oxfam Scotland and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, wrote to Mr Swinney and Ms Martin – who previously worked in the oil and gas industry for a decade – warning the fossil fuel plant would “take Scotland in completely the wrong direction”, and pointing to carbon capture technology’s “long inglorious history of failure”.

A section 36 planning application was submitted to the Scottish Government’s energy consents unit in February 2022. Mr Swinney’s administration, which is coming under growing pressure to set out a coherent position on new North Sea oil and gas developments, is expected to make a decision on the project in the coming weeks and months.

FoE Scotland’s investigation and subsequent complaint alleges there were several incidents where senior Government members were briefed by civil servants to welcome and offer support to the plans in meetings with SSE and Equinor. It has alleged there were ten separate breaches where ministers prejudiced the energy consents process.

They include claims of a private dinner attended by the then business minister, Ivan McKee, and David Cairns, vice-president of Equinor, at Glasgow’s boutique Dakota Hotel in May 2022. A briefing prepared by civil servants states Mr McKee, the public finance minister, was advised to “offer your support in any challenges faced by the organisation”.

FoE Scotland’s complaint also pinpoints the-then first minister Humza Yousaf’s visit to the existing Peterhead gas power station in July last year, where he took part in a promotional video for SSE, stating he was “really impressed” with the site’s future plans. Such actions, the charity claims, ran contrary to multiple elements of the ministerial code.

Paragraphs 8.9 and 8.10 of the code state that a First Minister “must be seen to do nothing that could be perceived as prejudicial to the planning process”, and should “avoid making any public statement about the merits of a planning application, even in their capacity as local MSP, that might be seen to put the planning minister under pressure when making a decision about a planning matter”.

The complaint also highlights a meeting between Mr Cairns and Mr Yousaf’s predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, held in April 2022. Prior to that meeting, Ms Sturgeon was briefed to say that she welcomed Equinor’s continued investment, and that “the Peterhead site is ideally placed for carbon capture technology”. That, FoE Scotland allege, amounted to a “specific offer of support” for the new gas power station and was prejudicial to the planning process.

FoE Scotland also points out that although the ministerial code stipulates the “basic facts of formal meetings between ministers and outside interest groups” should be recorded, they claim 16 meetings between ministers and the Peterhead plant firms were not published in the Government’s official lists of ministerial engagements.

They included a March 2022 meeting between Mr Swinney, the-then finance secretary, and SSE executives, and a June 2023 meeting between Mairi McAllan, the Cabinet secretary for net zero, and SSE, and multiple 2023 meetings between SSE and Neil Gray, the-then energy secretary. Five Scottish Government special advisers engaged with SSE executives in unrecorded meetings, according to FoE Scotland.

Alex Lee, climate campaigner at FoE Scotland, said: “These 28 breaches of the ministerial code show a deeply troubling pattern of behaviour right across the Scottish Government. Public concerns have been deliberately ignored to try and push through a climate damaging planning application in the interests of greedy energy companies.

“Ministers and civil servants have been caught out playing fast and loose with the rules, in favour of a polluting project that risks locking households into higher energy bills for decades to come.

“Our investigations show that the Scottish Government has treated the outcome of this planning application as a foregone conclusion right from the beginning and has failed to follow the planning process and assess the evidence objectively.”

They added: “John Swinney must get his Government in order and stop listening to fossil fuel companies. Once this project is assessed fairly on its merits, the huge climate pollution and impact on home energy bills will mean the only rational conclusion will be a rejection.

“Workers and communities in the north east of Scotland need a credible transition plan that can move us to good green jobs in renewables, not a project built on the rotten foundations of carbon capture and backroom lobbying.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “The Scottish Government will consider any complaint in line with usual practice.

“It would not be appropriate to comment on a live planning application. A decision will be taken by ministers in due course, following consideration of the application information, consultation responses and representations made by members of the public.”