Watchdog ‘to demand five-year lobbying ban for ex-ministers’

MINISTERS should be banned from lobbying for up to five years after leaving office, the anti- corruption watchdog will recommend in a report published today.

Lord Evans, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, will say there needs to be ‘greater transparency’ in this area in the wake of the Greensill scandal.

Former prime minister David Cameron is expected to be singled out in the report. Earlier this year it emerged that Mr Cameron had sent texts to Chancellor Rishi Sunak and other government officials to lobby for a loan for Greensill Capital.

Lord Evans’s recommendations will be published in an emergency review of lobbying guidelines.

It will demand a shake-up of the system to prevent former ministers using their contacts and expertise for personal gain.

‘I do think there needs to be greater transparency,’ he told Radio 4’s Westminster Hour last night. ‘There’s nothing wrong with lobbying in principle, but there needs to be a level playing field and it needs to be done visibly.’

Lord Evans will demand in his report that ministers ‘disclose informal lobbying over WhatsApp and text messages’, the Sunday Times reported. The interim report will recommend introducing anti-lobbying clauses to the employment contracts of ministers, special advisers and civil servants, it said.

Sanctions could include fines for rule breakers while other recommendations include banning ministers from taking jobs for two years in sectors over which they had direct responsibility in office.

The appointments watchdog could also get the power to ban ex-ministers from taking certain jobs for up to five years ‘where appropriate’, the paper said.

Asked if he was shocked at the extent of lobbying in the Greensill case, Lord Evans, who served under Mr Cameron as MI5 chief for three years, said: ‘I was surprised. It didn’t look to me to be appropriate that that level of intervention should be going on without it having been properly declared.’

The standards committee was created in 1994 following the ‘ cash-for- questions’ scandal.