Boris Johnson is on the rack over the David Cameron lobbying scandal with Labour calling for a full parliamentary inquiry into how the former Tory Prime Minister contacted cabinet ministers on behalf of the failed finance company.
Labour will force a vote in the Commons on Wednesday to establish a parliament-run inquiry into the Greensill lobbying scandal.
Former PM Cameron texted Chancellor Rishi Sunak about the firm accessing a Covid loans scheme
He also took Lex Greensill for a private drink with Health Secretary Matt Hancock in 2019 and contacted civil servants and senior government advisers.
Greensill was an adviser to the former PM when he was in Downing Street and his supply chain finance firm hired Cameron in 2018 after he left office.
Labour is unlikely to win the Opposition Day debate but whipping Tory MPs to vote against a Commons investigation will pile pressure on Johnson to explain why the government's own inquiry will not be so wide-ranging.
Downing Street announced on Monday that senior lawyer, Nigel Boardman, will review how the specialist bank founded by Australian financier was granted access to a Covid loan scheme for businesses, putting hundreds of millions of pounds taxpayers’ money at risk.
MPs queued up in the Commons in Tuesday to denounce the government inquiry as a whitewash and ask about the lobbying ties between Cameron and current ministers.
Opening the urgent question debate, the shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, said chancellor Rishi Sunak was “running scared” after the government sent a junior Business minister, Paul Scully, to the despatch box.
Dodds said the chancellor’s officials met with Greensill ten times and Sunak himself took credit for the business loan schemes when they were in the headlines.
She added: “Yet the Chancellor is frit of putting his name to those loan schemes today. He has just spent £600,000 on communications, you’d think that would extend to communicating with Parliament.”
SNP Treasury spokeswoman Alison Thewliss also told the Commons: “This scandal further exposes the depth of cronyism at the heart of this UK Tory Government.”
Thewliss added: “There remains serious questions on the role of Greensill while Mr Cameron was prime minister and on who is being afforded similar influence in the UK Government today.”
Opposition MPs are demanding answers on how Greensill came to be accredited to take part in a scheme offering government-backed loans to companies hit by the Covid pandemic and whether the former PM played a part.
Cameron texted and phoned Sunak to ask him about broadening another covid scheme the Covid Corporate Finance Facility (CCFF) so Greensill could be allowed to take part.
Labour is also calling on Matt Hancock to reveal all his contacts with Cameron, after it was revealed the Health Secretary met the former PM and Greensill for a “private drink” in 2019 to discuss a new payment scheme for the NHS.
Labour’s Wes Streeting MP told the Commons: “The simple fact is again and again and again, members on all sides of the House pleaded with the Chancellor to meet with us to hear the plight of millions of people who were excluded from any Government support and the Chancellor would never find the time for such a meeting.
“But a few texts from ‘dodgy Dave’ and Greensill got ten meetings and a ream of correspondence with senior Treasury officials, the type of access that most businesses in this country could only dream of.”
He added: “If the Chancellor had nothing to fear he’d have nothing to hide and would be here to answer the questions.”
Paul Scully said the government review of links to Greensill would be published by the end of June.
