Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps has accused Just Stop Oil protesters of “illegal criminal damage” after two activists filmed themselves spraying his department’s building with orange paint.
Matthew Cunningham, 25, and Imogen May, 24, took responsibility for the direct action on the property in Victoria Street in Westminster.
The organisation said it spattered the department with paint after it issued more than 100 new oil and gas licences in the UK.
The targeting of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero was one of a number of protests carried out by Just Stop Oil in London on Wednesday.
According to the Metropolitan Police, slow-marching demonstrators were cleared by officers from Westminster Bridge, Victoria Street and Vauxhall Bridge Road, as well as from roads in Marylebone and Kensington.
Mr Shapps, responding to questions about the paint protest on LBC during a round of broadcast interviews, said: “It is illegal criminal damage and I will leave that to the authorities.”
He has since written to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer demanding he pay for the damage.
“As the political wing of Just Stop Oil, it is the Labour Party not the taxpayer that should be paying the bill”, he said.
Read the letter in full below:
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