Guardian: Owen Paterson held urgent meeting for fracking boss, documents show

The environment secretary, Owen Paterson, convened an urgent high-level meeting for the boss of fracking company Cuadrilla after a disagreement over shale gas regulation, the Guardian can reveal.

Cuadrilla's chairman, Lord Browne, had already met the Environment Agency's chair, Lord Chris Smith, at least three times to dispute whether regulations covering drilling waste applied to the company's operations. At the meeting Paterson organised at Browne's request, Smith offered to halve the consultation time for a waste permit, agreed to intervene with a county council over Cuadrilla's planning permission and to identify further risks to Cuadrilla's plans.

The disclosures show a conflict of interest between Browne's positions as both the government's lead non-executive director and the chair of Cuadrilla, according to Green party MP, Caroline Lucas: "These revelations are extremely disturbing and it certainly looks like there is a conflict of interest between Lord Browne's government and commercial positions."

Lucas, a member of the environmental audit committee of MPs, is also concerned by the Environment Agency's approach in the meeting: "That is even more worrying and seems at odds with its responsibilities to protect the environment and to ensure that people have their say on fracking." Lucas is set to appear alongside other anti-fracking campaigners at Brighton magistrates court on Monday to face charges arising from the anti-Cuadrilla protest in Balcombe, Sussex, in August 2013.

A spokesman for Browne, the former chief executive of BP, said: "We welcome the fact ministers have listened to the views of a range of stakeholders, including Cuadrilla. Any meetings that Lord Browne has had on this issue have taken place in his capacity as chairman of Cuadrilla in an appropriate way, with officials present, and on the same basis as others have meetings with ministers and officials."  MORE