Reading West MP and COP26 climate tsar Alok Sharma has received donations from an oil drilling and shipping tycoon.

Mr Sharma is President of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, which began on Sunday and ends on November 12.

It has been revealed the Conservative MP, who has represented Reading West as an MP since 2010, received two donations of £5,000 from Ravi and Manju Mehrotra in 2017 and 2020.

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The donations, which were published in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, were highlighted last week in a report by journalist Nafeez Ahmed for Byline Times which questioned his suitability as COP26 President.

The second donation was registered in January 2020, a month before he was given COP26 President role, with the other donation registered in June 2017.

Dr Ravi Mehrotra is an Indian entrepreneur from Kanpur. He is the chairman and founder of Foresight Group International, a global conglomerate with interests including shipping and offshore oil drilling.

A spokesperson for Alok Sharma MP said: “Mr Sharma declared these donations from 2017 and 2019 in line with Parliamentary rules, received in his capacity as a parliamentary candidate. These have been published with full transparency on the Register of Members’ Interests.”

Mr Sharma has also received £10,000 from Aquind, a company planning a £1.2bn project for a 148-mile cable between Normandy and Hampshire.

Aquind is owned by former oil executive Victor Fedotov, who made millions from an allegedly corrupt Russian pipeline deal, according to leaked Pandora Papers files.

The UK government last month postponed a decision on whether to approve the £1.2bn electricity link between England and France.

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Other recent donations to Mr Sharma include:

  • Two £10,000 donations from pizza delivery company Bansols Beta in November 2019 and June 2017
  • £3,000 from clothing company Memo Fashions in August 2019
  • £5,000 from Sun Mark (a consumer goods export company owned by Conservative House of Lords member Rami Ranger) in June 2017

The COP26 summit, a UN event which is being attended by 120 heads of state, is an opportunity for the world’s leaders to make significant commitments to tackle the threat of climate change.

Today world leaders pledged to halt and reverse deforestation by the end of the decade, while yesterday India committed to going carbon neutral by 2070.