Lobbying and Cameron

Dear Constituent,

On Wednesday (14 April 2021), the House of Commons debated an Opposition motion calling for the establishment of a cross-party Select Committee to look into allegations of cronyism concerning former Prime Minister David Cameron and the company Greensill Capital.

I supported the Opposition motion because I believe that, after a string of recent revelations, David Cameron and the current Government have questions to answer. These include why Lex Greensill was given a desk inside Downing Street while Mr Cameron was Prime Minister and how it was that Greensill Capital, with Mr Cameron’s involvement, got the green light to give hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer-backed loans.

In the debate, the Government confirmed its intention only to establish an “independent review” into the awarding of the loans and opposed the Opposition motion. In my opinion, a narrowly focused review as proposed by the Government is wholly inadequate. Moreover, at the Prime Minister’s behest, it will be chaired by Nigel Boardman, a consultant at the law firm Slaughter and May, even though Mr Boardman has been paid over £20,000 per year as a non-executive director at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), which in turn overseas the British Business Bank, which lent to Greensill, and the British steel industry. Furthermore, Mr Boardman was appointed as a trustee of the British Museum by David Cameron. For these reasons, I do not believe Mr Broadman would be an appropriate chair.

Instead, as the Opposition motion proposed, I believe the allegations of cronyism should be examined in public by an independent cross-party committee of backbench MPs with the power to call witnesses and examine documents. There was strong cross-party support for this step.

During the debate, further concerns were raised about the fact that the Prime Minister has yet to appoint a new independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests, almost six months after the last holder of the post, Sir Alex Allen, resigned after the Prime Minister backed the Home Secretary despite a report Sir Alex had compiled which concluded the Home Secretary’s past conduct "amounted to behaviour that can be described as bullying.” Besides the delay in appointing Sir Alex’s replacement, there has been a troubling hiatus in the publication of the List of Ministerial Interests, and this was also brought up in today’s proceedings. The List is supposed to be published twice a year, but it was published only once last year, in July, and not at all since then.

Unfortunately, Government MPs voted against the establishment of a Select Committee to conduct an independent inquiry. However, I will continue to support calls for a proper investigation into these issues. I believe action must be taken to close loopholes in the law, better regulate lobbyists and lift standards in public office to ensure that something like this cannot happen again.

Thank you for your email.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Dowd MP