Cameron: I’ll learn lesson but I haven’t broken rules
DAVID CAMERON has admitted he should have communicated with ministers ‘through only the most formal of channels’ when lobbying for scandal-hit company Greensill Capital.
Breaking his silence for the first time, he insisted he was ‘breaking no codes of conduct and no government rules’.
But the former prime minister accepted he should have acted differently ‘so there can be no room for misinterpretation’ and added that ‘important lessons’ would be learned.
However, critics said the rules which Mr Cameron has denied breaking were established under his leadership when
he was PM in 2014 – and argued that they are not fit for purpose and should be replaced.
Mr Cameron’s first public statement comes after it emerged he took financier Lex Greensill for a ‘private drink’ with health secretary Matt Hancock to discuss a new payment scheme for the NHS.
At the time of the meeting, in October 2019, Mr Cameron was lobbying on behalf of Mr Greensill’s company over an app it had devised, The Sunday Times reported.
An ally of Mr Hancock insisted the health secretary had ‘acted in entirely the correct way’ and briefed officials on the discussions. Some NHS trusts went on to use Greensill’s app, which allowed staff to be paid early for hours they had already worked.
Mr Cameron’s work for Mr Greensill has come under intense scrutiny following reports he unsuccessfully pleaded for his employer’s firm to be given access to government-backed Covid loans, including sending text messages to chancellor Rishi Sunak.
The ex-PM was said to have described the decision to exclude the financier from the scheme as ‘nuts’. In an email on April 3 last year, he wrote: ‘What we need is for Rishi to have a good look at this and ask officials to find a way of making it work.’ Greensill Capital later collapsed putting thousands of steelmaking jobs at risk.
Labour MP Bridget Phillipson, the shadow Treasury secretary, pressed for an inquiry into ‘the culture of cronyism at the heart of this government’.