No fraud investigation against aviation fraud

Dear Mr. John,

I am shocked that you are not prepared to investigate this matter further, which must rank as one of the largest frauds ever.

It is clear who the victims are – they are the tax payers of this country, our youngsters and the next generation.

Flying Matters lobbies on behalf of the aviation industry and they are paid for by the aviation industry. It is their job to remove impediments in way of the aviation industry. There is no political restriction to stop their behaviour as all three main parties support expansion of the aviation industry. Now your actions demonstrate that they will also suffer no legal consequences either.

You have demonstrated that “might is right” by your inaction.

The facts are clear; Flying Matters have made deliberate false claims about future technical progress expected from the aviation industry and these claims form the backbone of their arguments, by their own admission they have achieved gain for their sponsors by getting the Conservatives to drop their quality of life agenda and green taxes, (see section Key Projects 2007-9). If you have done any investigation, you will also have discovered that the false claims of technical progress where crucial in getting the aviation industry of the hook in the ETS. If this is not serious fraud, it is hard to imagine what is.

You may have seen in the news today that the students are rioting - hardly surprising. They are being simultaneously told that they are going to be the ones that will pick up the problems of global warming, energy shortages and the government deficit, while simultaneously being crippled with student debt. At the same time, they watch helplessly as organisations such as the aviation industry subvert the democratic process to avoid paying fair taxes that reflect the extreme damage that they do the environment.

Our society is held together by a common belief that it is in everyone’s interest to obey the law. When it becomes clear that the law will not be upheld or applied selectively to support the interests of a powerful minority against the interests of the majority, then the perfect environment for societal breakdown is created.

I trust that you will reconsider your position and initiate the investigation that is warranted, and I look forward to hearing from you with an updated position.

Kevin Lister


--- On Tue, 7/12/10, +EIU wrote:


From: +EIU

Subject: RE: Fraudulent Lobbying of by Flying Matters.

To: "'Kevin Lister'"

Date: Tuesday, 7 December, 2010, 11:21





Dear Mr Lister

Thank you for contacting the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and for informing us that you suspect you a fraud has taken place.

After consideration of the information you have provided to us, we have concluded that this is not a matter which is appropriate for investigation by the SFO. Accordingly, no further action will be taken by us and I hope the following will help explain why this is so.

The SFO is a relatively small, highly specialised government department that is permitted by law to investigate only those cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect serious or complex fraud. For this reason, we take on only a small number of new cases each year and almost all of these are referred to us by the police or other law enforcement agencies.

That is not to say that the matter you have reported is any less important. It is essential that suspected offences are investigated expeditiously and our intention in informing you that this is not a matter for the SFO is to reduce the delay in it being brought to the attention of the appropriate organisation.

If you believe you are the victim of have information of anything other than the most serious or complex fraud, you should normally pursue the matter through your local police force. The police have primary responsibility within the UK for investigating all types of criminality including fraud and other offences of dishonesty.

In certain situations the information you have provided may be retained on our intelligence database for future reference. Information which includes any personal data (such as your contact details) will only be processed, retained or disclosed in accordance with the principles laid down in the Data Protection Act 1998. Please be assured that all information you have provided will be handled professionally and with the utmost sensitivity.

Once again, thank you for contacting the SFO and for bringing your concerns to our attention.

Yours sincerely,

Nigel John

Intelligence Officer

Flying Matters, SFO and Freedom of Information

Dear Neil Carmichael MP

It was nice to meet you this morning at the Nailsworth Market.

As discussed, I have been writing about aviation and climate change. The material dispels the idea that the aviation industry can be let off the climate change hook by using outdated figures to claim they only contribute 2% of greenhouse gas emissions.

Following this research, I wrote to Flying Matters which is the lobby group for the aviation industry to challenge the claims that they made on their web site, namely:

• The industry is committed to improving fuel efficiency of new planes by 50% by 2020.

• The industry is committed to getting emission down to 2000 levels by 2050 despite a trebling of air passengers.

I have asked Flying Matters to support these claims, but they told me they came from Sustainable Aviation, who in turn claimed that they came from the IATA. In other words, it is a shameless example of buck passing in the face of a total absence of quantified evidence to support their claims, see correspondance.
This is hardly surprising as to meet the first claim all new plane designs such as the A380 and B787 must be abandoned and replaced with some other undesigned plane. To meet the second claim simple maths shows emissions from all planes must reduce to just 22% from today’s levels. To achieve both of these will require the laws of thermodynamics to be violated.

Making fraudulent claims such as this is extremely serious, not least because they have been successful in developing the idea that technology will ameliorate their climate change impacts. They have stated that as a result of their work they have been successful in persuading the Conservative Party to drop green taxes and contributed to the party moving away from the quality of life proposals.

Crude analysis shows that if aviation paid a similar tax burden to other forms of transport, up to 20% of the public spending cuts could be avoided by raising an extra £10billion of taxes.

In addition to avoiding taxes, the aviation industry has also been successful in delaying the introduction of a cap on aviation emission in the European Carbon Trading Scheme (ETS) to 2020 on the basis of fraudulent claims about the capabilities of technical progress. It will be the general public that will be forced to make much more punitive cuts in their carbon allowances in the future to compensate for aviation emissions today.

It is therefore hard to think of a more serious fraud, and as a result I have submitted the evidence to the Serious Fraud Office.

The SFO have advised “We cannot provide you with feedback on how we have used the information you have provided.” I am therefore concerned that the SFO will not pursue this investigation as they may feel it is simply too difficult as task for them to take on.

I therefore would request the following from you:

• To raise in parliament and within the Conservative Party the question to what extent your party’s policies on aviation and taxation have been shaped by unsubstantiated technical claims from Flying Matters.

• To support a Freedom of Information request on the SFO with regard to the investigative work and conclusions they come to on Flying Matters’ fraudulent claims.


Regards,
Kevin Lister