PM orders inquiry into Cameron’s Greensill lobbying
Greensill affair deepens as Sir John Major calls for overhaul of ethical rules binding ex-ministers
BORIS JOHNSON has ordered an inquiry that will examine David Cameron’s lobbying of Government for the collapsed lender Greensill, marking the first time a prime minister has demanded a probe into their predecessor.
The independent inquiry will look at how the finance firm secured state contracts and how its representatives, including Mr Cameron, “engaged with Government”, Downing Street said.
Sir John Major, the former Tory prime minister, and Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, called for an overhaul of ethics rules governing all former ministers, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
A spokesman for Mr Cameron said: “We welcome this inquiry and will be glad to take part.”
Labour accused the Government of using the inquiry to “push bad behaviour into the long grass and hope the British public forgets”.
SIR JOHN MAJOR has called for an overhaul of the ethics rules that bind former ministers as No 10 launched an inquiry into David Cameron’s lobbying for the collapsed lender Greensill.
The Daily Telegraph can disclose that Sir John has said that propriety regulations governing current and former frontbenchers and senior officials should be examined in the wake of the row engulfing Mr Cameron.
Announced yesterday, it will investigate how Greensill secured state contracts for supply chain finance, in which it specialised. The inquiry will also look at how the lender’s representatives, including Mr Cameron, “engaged with government”, Downing Street said.
The Prime Minister called the inquiry in order to bolster transparency and allow the public to “see for themselves if good value was secured for taxpayers’ money”, his spokesman said.
Criticism has been heaped on Mr Cameron over reports that during his administration he allowed Lex Greensill, founder of the eponymous lender, access to Whitehall departments. Mr Cameron accepted a job at Greensill two years after leaving government. He was revealed to have lobbied four ministers on behalf of the lender before it filed for insolvency last month.
Last night, Dame Arabella Warburton, chief of staff to Sir John, the former Tory prime minister, said he believed it was “right to re-examine and update the rules on propriety”. Sir John first established the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 1994 following the parliamentary cash-for-questions scandal in which some backbench MPS were revealed to have accepted money to ask questions in the Commons. “There is always a risk they will become porous in some respects,” said Dame Arabella. “To guard against this, Sir John believes such rules should be supplemented by conventions that clearly set out the kind of behaviour that is – or is not – acceptable.”
The intervention came after Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, yesterday called for tougher rules to prevent former prime ministers lobbying within government, arguing it “brings public service into disrepute”.
He suggested legislation banning the practice for five years if existing rules could not be made to work. He told the BBC: “Former ministers, prime ministers, must never be lobbying for commercial purposes.” The inquiry will be led by Nigel Boardman, a lawyer dubbed the most famous corporate solicitor of his generation. The Cabinet Office said it would report by the end of June.
A spokesman for Mr Cameron indicated he would be willing to answer questions, saying: “We welcome this inquiry and will be glad to take part.”
Labour accused the Government of launching the inquiry to “push bad behaviour into the long grass and hope the British public forgets”. It attempted to increase pressure on the Government by tabling an urgent question in the Commons today, granted by the Speaker, asking the Chancellor to explain the process by which Greensill Capital was accredited a lender for the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Scheme last summer.
It was unclear if Rishi Sunak, who last week disclosed his text messages with Mr Cameron over Greensill last year, or another minister would appear, as it remained in the Government’s gift who appeared at the Dispatch Box.
On Sunday Mr Cameron broke a 30-day silence to say his actions broke no codes of conduct but that there were “important lessons to be learnt”.
Tory MP Tim Loughton called the timing of his statement, after the death of the Duke of Edinburgh last Friday, “very, very poor” and “pretty tacky”.
The burgeoning controversy surrounding David Cameron’s association with the collapsed Greensill financial group has taken on a new lease of life with the announcement of an independent inquiry into the affair. The former prime minister broke a lengthy silence at the weekend to respond to some of the allegations, hoping, no doubt, that they would go away as a result. Instead, Boris Johnson has authorised an investigation into the contacts his predecessor made with various government departments, ministers and officials in an effort to rescue Greensill from bankruptcy.
Mr Cameron has been cleared of breaching the official code on lobbying practices by the watchdog regulator he established while in office. The Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists concluded that the former premier did not need to register because he was an in-house employee with Greensill as opposed to a paid lobbyist. But the matter has refused to die down, with more revelations about Greensill’s access to the highest levels of government during Mr Cameron’s time in office, together with a lengthening list of people in the present administration whom he contacted. Some of these disclosures have been volunteered by serving ministers, including Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, who published his text message correspondence with Mr Cameron in a bid to quell suggestions he had acted improperly in any way.
The inquiry will be led by Nigel Boardman, a partner at the law firm Slaughter and May, who also sits on the Business Department’s board. He is tasked with “examining issues of supply chain finance and the role Greensill played” as well as the way contracts were secured. Engagement with firms, including lobbying by Mr Cameron, will be covered. Mr Cameron has acknowledged that he should probably have approached the Government over helping to ease Greenshill’s financial position through “formal” channels, rather than relying on contacts he had made while in No 10. But Gordon Brown said he should not have been lobbying at all.
It is unclear whether it will be within the remit of the Boardman Inquiry to recommend new rules in this area or to range more widely. It may well be the case that Mr Cameron has done nothing wrong within the letter of the law. But the old Westminster question always posed in such circumstances is not so much legalistic as political: “Does it pass the smell test?”