LABOUR’S appointee to a plum government job is linked with a Cayman Islands-based hedge fund which donated £4 million to the party, The National can reveal.
Rachel Kyte has been appointed to the revived UK Government climate envoy role – which when it last existed commanded a salary of at least £130,000.
She is the co-chair of the Quadrature Climate Foundation’s advisory board, which was founded by the same people behind the hedge fund Quadrature Capital.
Quadrature, which holds hundreds of millions of pounds of shares in fossil fuels, private health firms, and arms manufacturers, donated £4m to Labour ahead of the General Election, the investigative news site openDemocracy revealed earlier this month.
The site said its latest filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission from August showed it had hundreds of millions of dollars invested in oil firms including Cenovus, which earlier this year was fined for an Atlantic oil spill.
It also held a $6m in arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin, investments in US private healthcare firms and massive asset management firms such as Blackstone and KKR.
The donation only came to light months after the election because it had been made in a brief window where the election donation reporting rules had not come into force after Rishi Sunak announced the date of the ballot.
It is said to be the sixth-largest donation in British political history.
Kyte, who previously held senior roles relating to climate change with the World Bank in the US, also worked as a professor of practice in climate policy at Oxford University and is the chair of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI).
VCMI provides guidance to firms on controversial carbon credits, which allow companies to buy permission to “offset” their emissions, a practice the Climate Change Committee has said could mean they are used as a substitute for actually reducing emissions.
Sunak got rid of the climate envoy role and Kyte’s appointment was welcomed by some climate experts.
But her links with Quadrature Capital have raised questions for the Government over the firm’s financial ties to Labour.
SNP MP Kirsty Blackman (above) told The National: “The questions around this murky donation just keep coming for the Labour Party and it's high time we heard some explanations.
"Fresh on the back of his £100,000 gifts and designer clothing bonanza, we now know Sir Keir Starmer's £4m donation is dripping in controversy too.
"These scandals have exposed Labour’s priorities and it seems pensioners staying warm this winter ranks below flash gifts and plush penthouse digs.
"The Labour Party is drowning in questions of sleaze which simply aren't going away – it's time Sir Keir Starmer provided some answers."
Jess Ayers, the CEO of the Quadrature Climate Foundation said the organisation was independent from Quadrature Capital.
She said the charity was “politically neutral and does not support any political party”.
Ayers said: “Quadrature Climate Foundation is building an advisory board to provide independent challenge and thought partnership to enhance its impact in the field.
“The advisory board has no decision-making powers. Rachel [Kyte] was appointed as co-chair of this board in December 2023 due to her outstanding leadership across the climate space, including her senior roles at the World Bank, UN agencies, and third-sector organisations.
“Rachel’s expertise has been further recognised through her competitive appointment to this significant UK Government role.”
The UK Government was approached for comment.
