Business Card Places Greensill Founder in the Heart of Downing Street | David cameron

Cameron subsequently took on an advocacy role for Greensill Capital, urging Chancellor Rishi Sunak in text messages last year to include Greensill in Treasury’s Covid bailout plans.

Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds said: “This raises more serious questions about the special access that Lex Greensill was granted to the heart of government. The public has a right to know what happened here; we need a full, transparent and thorough investigation. “

Greensill Capital collapsed in administration earlier this month. Cameron was acquitted last week by the Lobby Consultant Registry regulator on the grounds that, as an employee of the firm, his behavior was not formally lobbying; But new questions about the relationship between the two men have continued to emerge.

The Financial Times reported that Greensill was brought to Downing Street by then-Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood, who had met the financier during a stint at the city bank Morgan Stanley, where Greensill worked before settling down on his own.

The Cameron government launched a supply chain finance initiative that allowed banks to play an intermediary role between Whitehall and local pharmacies.

Greensill’s calling card, which seemed to confirm his closeness to Cameron and his accession to number 10, came about when Sunak was accused of violating ministerial code for failing to state Cameron’s approaches.

Tom Brake, a former Liberal Democrat MP who helped design the lobbying registry while he was vice speaker of the House of Commons, said the law required the chancellor to publicly state any unplanned discussions with lobbyists like Cameron, who joined Greensill. as an advisor in 2018.

The code says that ministers who end up meeting and discussing official business without the presence of another official, “for example, on a social occasion or on a holiday,” must transmit any “significant content” to the department as soon as possible. Any unplanned discussion will be published in a report of the external meetings of ministers, which is published four times a year.

Brake’s allegations are based on the interpretation that text conversations are covered by the code. Greensill’s failure to appear on the formal record of ministerial meetings meant that Sunak did not follow the rules as intended, the former MP said.

“The ministerial code is clear. Attempts to pressure Rishi Sunak, even an informal one, such as receiving multiple text messages, a) must be reported by Mr. Sunak to the Treasury; and b) the contact should be formally reported in Mr. Sunak’s quarterly ministerial meeting report, ”said Brake, who now works for the campaign group Unlock Democracy.

“It is not clear if the former happened. The second did not. This is a significant violation by the chancellor of the ministerial code and transparency rules, ”said Brake.

The growing scandal surrounding Greensill hit Whitehall after it emerged that Cameron had contacted the chancellor on his private phone last April while working as a consultant to the firm. At the time, Greensill was trying to secure access to hundreds of thousands of pounds of emergency Covid loans for which he did not qualify.

Giving Greensill access to Covid’s 100% government-backed Corporate Finance Facility (CCFF) would have meant bending the rules, as lenders are not meant to borrow money through the program.

However, it is understood that most of Cameron’s texts went unanswered and that Sunak later ordered him to speak to Treasury officials, who denied Greensill access to the CCFF. The bank was allowed to make loans to its clients under a scheme administered by the state’s British Business Bank, which were 80% guaranteed by the taxpayer.