A former national security adviser Sir Stephen Lovegrove is to join the Rolls-Royce-led consortium developing small nuclear reactors as chair of its board, raising concerns about the revolving door between the public and private sectors.
The role, which has been approved by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), will begin in the new year. Lovegrove’s background as a permanent secretary, the most senior civil servant, in the energy department from 2013-2016 are likely to prove valuable to the consortium.
Lovegrove will be paid for his part-time role at Rolls-Royce SMR, a consortium that includes the Qatar Investment Authority as a partner. Rolls-Royce SMR is developing small modular reactor technology in part funded by the UK government. The relationship is managed through Great British Nuclear (GBN), an arm’s-length body of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
GBN’s non-executive directors include Hugo Robson, a senior civil servant who is the chief commercial negotiator for DESNZ. Robson has previously worked under Lovegrove in the energy department and in 2017 they gave evidence to a Commons select committee together.
GBN is running a competition with six companies vying for lucrative contracts to build the small modular reactors the government hopes will expand nuclear power in the UK. Billions of pounds of public and private investment await the companies that successfully develop small modular reactors.
Lovegrove will begin his work for Rolls-Royce SMR in 2024 when GBN hopes to announce contracts by the summer. His role as chair will include managing stakeholder and shareholder relations.
Acoba has given Lovegrove, who served as permanent secretary in a predecessor department to DESNZ from 2013 to 2016, permission to “draw on his skills and experience gained in office to advise the Rolls-Royce SMR Board on its strategy and proposals. That includes those related to government funding […] provided he does not draw on any privileged information or contacts from his time in office”.
Along with the other members of the company’s board, Lovegrove will review, scrutinise and approve proposals by Rolls-Royce SMR’s executive on the “deployment of its small modular reactors with proposed customers – including GBN”.
The Guardian has discovered, however, that while Lovegrove and Rolls-Royce SMR told Acoba he has had “no prior contact or engagement with the individuals within GBN”, he has known and worked with DESNZ’s chief commercial negotiator for a number of years.
Lovegrove signed a letter in 2015 formalising Robson’s appointment to a senior role on the Hinkley Point C nuclear power project, noting Robson was a member of the department’s senior leadership team.
In 2017, Robson and Lovegrove, by then the permanent secretary at the MoD, gave evidence to the public accounts committee in the same hearing on Hinkley Point C. At times, Lovegrove suggested Robson may be better placed to answer the committee’s questions.
Now, Lovegrove is in a position to advise Rolls-Royce SMR as it prepares to negotiate with GBN, with years of experience as a senior manager to Robson, a non-executive director of GBN, which has given him a vantage point to understand his negotiation strategies, thinking and character, if Robson has a role in the negotiations.
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DESNZ refused to say what role, if any, Robson might play in negotiations on behalf of GBN. They said the GBN competition had “robust conflict of interest policies”.
Rolls-Royce SMR told Acoba that Lovegrove will not be involved in developing bids or contributing to the negotiation process run by GBN.
A spokesperson for Rolls-Royce SMR said Lovegrove has had no dealings with, contact or engagement, with the individuals at GBN in relation to their roles there. Lovegrove did not comment.
An Acoba spokesperson said: “Acoba does not consider that engagement with individuals during his time at DECC seven years ago and who are now with GBN would be material to this application.”
Rose Whiffen, a senior research officer at Transparency International UK, said: “Unfortunately, there are threadbare rules in place to regulate the so-called revolving door but at the very least, former officials should be able to abide by these, including full transparency about their time in government.”
