Cameron texted Sunak for Treasury loans

DAVID CAMERON sent several text messages to Rishi Sunak asking him to approve hundreds of millions of pounds in loans to a company he advised, it was reported last night.

The former prime minister was alleged to have sent a series of messages to the Chancellor’s private phone in April last year to lobby him over loans to Greensill, which went bust this month.

Mr Cameron was an adviser to Greensill and it is claimed that he had share options believed to be worth up to tens of millions of pounds. Most of his texts to Mr Sunak went unanswered, The Sunday Times reported. There is no suggestion Mr Cameron acted unlawfully.

His alleged intervention was reported to have taken place after Lex Greensill, the firm’s founder, held unsuccessful talks with Treasury officials about a taxpayer-funded bailout.

The report claims that Mr Cameron wanted a loan for Greensill from the Covid Corporate Financing Facility.

Mr Sunak backed Treasury officials who said the company did not qualify for the scheme, according to the report.

While Mr Cameron’s alleged efforts were to no avail, Greensill was still able to lend hundreds of millions of pounds through companies linked to Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance. These form part of taxpayers’ exposure to £ 1 billion of debts linked to Mr Gupta and Greensill through three state guarantees.

A spokesman for the Treasury said: “Treasury officials regularly meet with stakeholders … The meetings in question were primarily about broadening the scope of CCFF to enable access for providers of supply chain finance, which … we decided against.”