UK MPs will decide on Monday whether to investigate the collapse of Greensill Capital, including former prime minister David Cameron’s attempts to lobby for the company, according to reports.
The Treasury Committee will meet to decide on its course of action after the Labour opposition called for an inquiry into Cameron’s activities on behalf of Greensill.
The Financial Times reported last week that Cameron urged the government to increase Greensill’s access to emergency Covid-19 loan shemes. Cameron, prime minister from 2010 to 2016 became an adviser to Greensill in 2018 and had share options potentially worth millions of pounds that are now worthless.
The Sunday Times reported that Cameron repeatedly texted Chancellor Rishi Sunak in 2020 asking him to give Greensill access to government backed loans under the Covid Corporate Financing Facility. Most of the texts went unanswered and Sunak referred Cameron to Treasury officials, the report said.
Greensill did lend hundreds of millions of pounds under a separate government-backed facility, including to companies linked to Sanjeev Gupta, the steel tycoon whose business is in trouble after Greensill’s collapse.
Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds said: “Rishi Sunak already had questions to answer as to why Greensill was given so much more access to the Treasury than other Covid lenders.
“The suggestion that David Cameron was also contacting the chancellor directly to further Greensill’s commercial interests raises even bigger concerns. This is public money, and the processes involved in decision-making should be fully transparent and beyond reproach. We need a full and thorough investigation into what’s happened here.”
Cameron has refused to comment on his involvement with Greensill. In 2010 when he was in opposition Cameron said lobbying would be the “next big scandal” in political life
