Charles Hendry, MP for Wealden plans to retire from Parliament in May 2015, so it is not unreasonable that the 55 year old should be looking around for some of the possible ways of earning a living post the election. He is a capable man and it appears that his plans for the transition are already well advanced. However just to be on the safe side, he has the comfort of knowing he will receive several months income from the state as resettlement pay which would have allowed him to find new avenues to explore had he been kept busy on constituency business. [The scored section of this blog is factually incorrect and remains in place merely for consistency. Many thanks to Mr Hendry for correcting my understanding.] He became Energy & Climate Change Minister at the General Election in 2010 and served in that capacity in addition to his Constituency responsibilities until the first Cabinet reshuffle in September 2012.

At the beginning of February 2013, Charles Hendry was announced as the new Chairman of Forewind, a post he took up on 4th February for one day a month for an annual salary of £48,000. According to their website

“Forewind is a consortium comprising four leading international energy companies which joined forces to bid for the Dogger Bank Zone Development Agreement as part of The Crown Estate’s third licence round for UK offshore wind farms (Round 3). Forewind combines extensive experience of international offshore project delivery and renewables development, construction, asset management and operations, with UK utility expertise spanning the complete electricity value chain.”

Clearly Charles was an ideal person to replace the retiring Chairman who until September 2012 had been John Gummer (Lord Deben) who as a member of the House of Lords was elected Chair of the Committee on Climate Change and resigned immediately to avoid any suggestion of a conflict of interest. Four months later Mr Hendry was in the news again because he had been appointed as an adviser to an organisation known as Atlantic Supergrid (ASC). He took up this post on 18th June 2013 providing one and a half days each month for £18,000 per year. According to its website ASC

“plans to build a 1000km cable between Iceland and the United Kingdom which, once complete, will be the longest sub-sea interconnector in the world, bringing 1.2 GW of sustainable power to 2m British homes. The ‘Ice-Link’ project is backed by our CEO, veteran city financier Edi Truell. It has the potential to deliver reliable, clean, low-cost power at scale, and that makes economic sense to British energy consumers, British industry and the Treasury. Our proposal could bring as much energy to Britain as the country’s most modern nuclear power station, without the burden of decommissioning and at a fraction of the cost.”

The website also goes on to explain about their adviser

“Charles is a British Conservative Party politician and the Member of Parliament for Wealden. In May 2010 he was appointed Minister of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change and served until 2012. Whilst in office, Charles was a strong supporter of the plan to import geothermal power to the UK from Iceland via an underwater connector and was instrumental in achieving the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries in May 2012. He joined ASC as an advisor in 2013.”

On Monday it was revealed to the readers of the Brighton based Argus newspaper that Mr Hendry has been busy again, this time taking on the role of Consultant

“Wealden MP Charles Hendry has been employed as a consultant for Swiss-based but Dutch-owned energy trading company Vitol. His £60,000-a-year package equates to one-and-a-half days a month working on behalf of the firm. The role has been cleared by the Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, the Westminster watchdog that polices former ministers’ outside interests.” 

According to their website Vitol

“Charter tankers and move crude oil and oil products. Products such as, gasoline, diesel, heating oil, fuel oil, jet fuel, naphtha and metals, as well as ethanol and chemicals: all over the world, every day. And we pipe gas, fill and operate terminals, ship coal and biofuels.”

Apparently this role which began on 1st February will take up another one and a half days of Mr Hendry’s time. Clearly Mr Hendry will not need to depend on public money in the form of resettlement funds to help with his transition into the world of work outside of Westminster, for at least 4 days a month and there is still more than a year to go to the election!