I RAISED A AN EYEBROW LORD PICKLES CALLS FOR STRICT RULES ON CONFLICT OF INTEREST AFTER SHOCK OVER SIZE OF SLEAZE ROW
PARLIAMENTARY adviser Eric Pickles has called for urgent reform after telling MPs the sleaze row engulfing government is the biggest he has seen.
‘My eyebrows did raise a full quarter inch,’ said Lord Pickles, whose Advisory Committee on Business Appointment (Acoba) committee looks at conflicts of interest. ‘I’ve been involved in public life a long time I’ve never come across anything quite like this before.
‘Not for one moment did I anticipate anything like Greensill.’
Seven inquiries have been launched which could see David Cameron, Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock dragged before MPs to explain the ‘open door’ between big business and Downing Street.
It comes after the former prime minister and the civil servant in charge of
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public spending attempted to win government contracts for billionaire financier Lex Greensill.
Senior civil servants were given a deadline this week to reveal any second jobs after it emerged that Mr Cameron’s former chief commercial officer Bill Crothers stood to earn up to £5million from his work for Greensill while still in charge of £40billion government funds .
Lord Pickles said he knew nothing of Mr Crothers’ new job and demanded to know who approved it.
‘I sincerely hope it will turn out that there is a record of this and it wasn’t just on the say so of an individual,’ he told the Commons public administration and Constitutional affairs committee. He said rules on ministers and top officials taking jobs with private firms needs urgent reform.
Boris Johnson said he agreed ‘entirely’ with Lord Pickles and has commissioned senior lawyer Nigel Boardman to carry out a review by June. But the prime minister ordered his MPs to vote down a cross-party inquiry on Wednesday. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said lobbying rules ‘aren’t working’ and said we are ‘seeing a murkier and murkier picture’. Mr Cameron, who has said he would ‘respond positively’ if asked to testify to MPs about Greensill, was pictured with Lex Greensill on their ‘ desert camping trip’ to Saudi Arabia in 2020. It showed them drinking tea in Riyadh, where Greensill planned to open an office.
On the trip, they met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was accused of ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mr Cameron insisted he raised concerns over human rights with the Arab leader.