David Cameron defends BP

Chief executive Tony Hayward was forced to endure a humiliating dressing down from US lawmakers as a Congressional committee hearing took on the style of a Stalinist show trial.

As the 53-year-old geologist was about to address the committee in Washington a woman heckler shouted: “You need to go to jail!” before she was bundled out.

The oil company chief had just sat through 90 minutes of stinging criticism from committee members. One told him to, “Get in your golden parachute back to England”. But the embattled chief executive, received the backing of the Prime Minister who was in a visit to Brussels.

Mr Cameron said: “BP is an important multinational company. It’s important to the UK. It’s also important, I would argue, to the United States. I want to see it as a strong and stable company. And I know what BP also wants is some form of clarity and certainty about the future, so it can be a strong and stable company. As the British Prime Minister, I’d like to see that happen.

“BP itself recognises that it has huge obligations and it will have to spend a huge amount of money to cap the leak, to pay for the clean-up and pay compensation where it is appropriate. All of those things it wants to do and of course it should do.”

Earlier, Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson denounced Barack Obama’s attacks on BP as criticism grew of the US President’s plan for a £14billion independently administered compensation fund. The Virgin Atlantic president accused Mr Obama of “unseemly behaviour” in repeatedly “kicking a company while it was on its knees”.

Sir Richard, one of the most senior businessmen to criticise Mr Obama’s attacks on BP, was speaking at a news conference in Las Vegas to mark the 10th anniversary of Virgin flying into the city. He said: “BP deserves to be criticised, but so do the regulators and the American government for not regulating the situation properly.”

At the Capitol Hill hearing lawmakers took turns to hammer Mr Hayward. But he did find support from one congressman, Republican Joe Barton. The Texan accused Mr Obama of a “$20billion shakedown” by requiring BP to set up the compensation fund. Mr Barton said: “I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House. I think it is a tragedy that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterise as a shakedown, a $20billion shakedown. It’s got no legal standing and sets a terrible precedent for the future.”

His was a lone voice of support at the hearing, where Mr Hayward was “sliced and diced” during a grilling by lawmakers keen to make political capital out of the disaster that followed an explosion on an off-shore rig on April 20. Committee chairman Bart Stupak led the savaging, raising echoes of prosecutors’ tactics in the show trials staged by Communist dictator Joseph Stalin in Russia after the revolution.

Mr Stupak relayed back to Mr Hayward his now regretted remark that he wanted the spill dealt with so he could have his life back. The Michigan Democrat said: “For the Americans who live and work on the Gulf coast, it may be years before they get their lives back. Mr Hayward, I’m sure you’ll get your life back and with a golden parachute back to England. But we in America are left with the terrible consequences of BP’s reckless disregard for safety.”

Democrat Henry Waxman said: “We have reviewed 30,000 pages of documents from BP, including your emails.

There is not a single email that shows you paid even the slightest attention to the dangers at this well.” Mr Waxman said an email from BP’s operations drilling engineer showed the firm’s corporate attitude. Mr Waxman said after learning of the risks and BP’s decision to ignore them, the drilling engineer wrote “who cares, it’s done, end of story, will probably be fine”.

When the BP boss was finally allowed to speak he told the committee the rig explosion should never have happened “and I am sorry it did”. He repeated his pledge that BP would pay all necessary clean-up costs and legitimate claims. He said the company would not stop spending “until the job is done” and described the April 20 blowout as “a complex accident, caused by an unprecedented combination of failures”.

Mr Hayward also defended his approach to safety since becoming chief executive of BP in 2007. “We have focused like a laser on safe and reliable operations – that is a fact,” he said. As the hearing became more confrontational, Mr Hayward was accused of ignoring warnings over safety risks, “stonewalling” and “failing to co-operate” with the sub-committee.

Mr Waxman said: “You are not taking responsibility, you are kicking the can down the road and acting like you have nothing to do with this company.” BP shares made the biggest gain on the FTSE 100 index yesterday, rising 6.7 per cent after the firm agreed to set up the £14billion compensation fund.

But the oil giant’s shares are still down more than 45 per cent from their peak in the days before the disaster.

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