Tory MPs will vote against a plan to set up a parliamentary inquiry into David Cameron and the Greensill lobbying scandal.
Labour’s proposal to set up a committee of MPs with the power to investigate the lobbying scandal that saw the former Prime Minister contact current cabinet members on behalf of the failed finance company is due to be debated in the Commons on Wednesday.
Labour says the government “cannot be trusted to mark their own homework” but the government will order Tory MPs to vote against the plan.
Labour said the call for a committee to publicly investigate government lobbying was about more than just the Greensill Capital affair.
Rachel Reeves MP, Shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: “MPs have a chance today to vote to have a special select committee to take evidence in public, to be able to require and summon witnesses but also documents and get to the bottom of this.
“This is much wider than just about what David Cameron has done, this is about what is happening at the heart of Government.”
Downing Street has insisted that it’s own independent review, led by lawyer Nigel Boardman will examine the company’s relationship with the government, as well as the role of its founder Lex Greensill, who was an adviser in Cameron’s government.
It will also look at Cameron’s lobbying on behalf of the now-collapsed company which he joined as an adviser in 2018, two years after standing down as Prime Minister.
Cameron has admitted he should have only contacted ministers through “the most formal of channels” after he privately texted Chancellor Rishi Sunak and other Treasury ministers over access to an emergency loan for Greensill, which later filed for insolvency.
The ongoing row over Cameron’s efforts to lobby ministers on behalf of the firm took a new twist on Tuesday when it was revealed a senior civil servant was approved to take a job working Greensill while still working for the government.
Bill Crothers, the Government’s former Head of Procurement, became an adviser to Greensill Capital while he was a civil servant, newly published letters reveal.
The Cabinet Office gave him permission to take the job in September 2015, two months before he left his role in Government.
Labour has said the Boardman investigation has “all the hallmarks of a Conservative cover-up”.
Rachel Reeves said: “The Greensill scandal is just the tip of the iceberg in Conservative cronyism, which has been endemic during the pandemic and long before – laced through billions of pounds of contracts paid for by taxpayers and a slew of troubling senior appointments.”
