David Cameron has admitted he had a “serious economic interest” in Greensill Capital, but refused to say how much he stood to earn.
Giving evidence to a House of Commons committee, the former prime minister insisted that he did not know that the finance firm was in trouble when he lobbied government ministers last year, despite boss Lex Greensill saying he informed him as early as March 2020.
And he said he would be ready to support changes to the law to ensure that in-house lobbyists like himself are forced to register if they make contact with ministers and officials on companies’ behalf.
Beginning up to five hours of grilling by two parliamentary committees, Mr Cameron said it was “a painful day” for him to have to answer questions about his behaviour as a senior adviser to Greensill, when he bombarded ministers including Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove with text messages, emails and calls seeking access to state Covid support schemes in the early days of the pandemic.
Asked how much money he stood to gain if Greensill had succeeded, Mr Cameron said: “I was paid a generous annual amount – far more than what I earned as Prime Minister – and I had shares, not share options but shares, in the business.
“I absolutely had a big economic investment in the future of Greensill, I wanted the business to succeed, I wanted it to grow. I haven’t put a number on those things.”
While accepting it was right for the committee to ask what his role was and whether he “overstepped the mark”, he said: “I had this economic interest – a serious economic interest, that’s important – but I don’t think the amount is particularly germane to answering those questions and as far as I’m concerned it’s a private matter.”
He insisted that reports he stood to gain £60m if the company succeeded were “completely absurd”.
Treasury committee chair Mel Stride suggested that Mr Cameron’s lobbying efforts were driven by the fear that Greensill might be about to fail, at financial cost to himself.
“Many people would conclude that, at the time of your lobbying, your opportunity to make a large amount of money was under threat,” said Mr Stride. “You really must have known that.”
But Mr Cameron responded: “I did not believe, in March or April, when I was doing this contact, that there was a risk of Greensill falling over.”
Mr Cameron was also asked about texts he sent to Tom Scholar, the Treasury permanent secretary, which he signed off with “love DC”.
“With anyone I know at all well, I tend to sign off text messages with ‘love DC’ – I don’t know what but I do,” the former prime minister explained.
The records released by the Treasury committee this week also raised eyebrows because Mr Cameron appeared to question a policy of cutting interest rates during pandemic.
But he said he had actually meant cutting VAT – claiming he had been a “victim of spell check” and had made an error.
Mr Cameron also claimed his push – by meeting Matt Hancock – to give Greensill a role in speeding up payments to health staff was a way to stamp out “the evils of payday lending”.
“The idea that staff in the NHS can draw down their salary, as they earn it – rather than have to wait until the end of the month – I think we could go some way to ending the use of payday lending,” he told MPs.
Mr Cameron said he now accepted he would have been better to contact ministers and officials through formal letters, but said that the lobbying took place during “exceptional times”.
He rejected suggestions that Whitehall officials would be unduly influenced by being contacted by a former prime minister.
“I think it was acceptable to do what I did,” he said. “I thought very carefully before picking up the telephone, and I thought the circumstances warranted because they were unique.
“I’ve reflected since then, and thought, in future it would much better to have one single communication. But these were exceptional times, and that’s why I think it was acceptable to do what I did.”
Mr Cameron said that in their evidence, Treasury officials Tom Scholar and Charles Roxburgh had said they “did not feel improper pressure”,
“Clearly these civil servants were not intimidated by getting a call from me or from looking at this proposal,” he said. “They thought it was appropriate and they got on and looked at the scheme.”
Mr Cameron accepted that “ex-prime ministers are different” and said there was an argument for a committee of former senior civil servants and businesspeople to advise them on interests after leaving office.
This would be of use “particularly for a younger one who doesn’t just want to be on the board of some bank and make the odd speech, but who wants to get stuck in and help a business grow and expand,” he said. “Perhaps I would find that beneficial.”
