13 questions MPs should ask Cameron over Greensill scandal

David Cameron will be hauled before MPs on Thursday for a grilling over his text message lobbying of ministers on behalf of Greensill Capital, the controversial bank he worked for and owned a stake in.

It was revealed this week that Cameron messaged ministers and officials more than 50 times at the height of the pandemic begging the government to allow Greensill access to an emergency coronavirus loan support scheme.

Both before and after becoming prime minister, Cameron repeatedly warned that lobbying would be “the next big scandal waiting to happen”. Now he is caught up in exactly the kind of lobbying scandal he vowed to eradicate.

Greensill, which operated by lending money to firms by buying their invoices at a discount, collapsed in March 2021 after insurers pulled their cover. The collapse has jeopardised 5,000 UK steelmaking jobs, as the bank was key lender to Liberty Steel.

On Thursday the MPs will have the opportunity to directly question Cameron. Here we suggest some possible questions:

1. When did you first meet Lex Greensill, and what was his role at No 10?

Greensill had a role at the heart of Downing Street while Cameron was prime minister, but it is unclear how he was appointed or what his role entailed. A business card handed out in 2012 described Greensill as “senior adviser, prime minister’s office”, and gives a personal No 10 email address at which he could be contacted.

Cameron has previously said: “The truth is, I had very little to do with Lex Greensill at this stage – as I recall, I met him twice at most in the entirety of my time as prime minister.” Does he stand by that statement?

2. Should we read anything into the timing of you joining Greensill in August 2018?

Cameron has said “the idea of my working for Greensill was never raised, or considered by me, until well after I left office”. And it is true, Cameron did not immediately join Greensill upon leaving office. He left No 10 on 13 July 2016, and said joined Greensill in August 2018.

The two-year gap meant Cameron did not have to ask permission from the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments to approve the role, as the oversight body only covers appointments made with two years.

3. Why was his appointment not announced by Greensill and never mentioned on his own website or his LinkedIn page?

Cameron’s personal website promotes his post-PM work with charities, including Alzheimer’s Research UK and National Citizen Service. It also briefly mentions that he is “working with a number of international businesses” but it does not – and has not – mentioned Greensill.

4. How much were you paid by Greensill, and what equity stake did you have in the bank?

Cameron has repeatedly refused to state how much he was paid by Greensill for his advice, or detail his shareholding. It has been widely reported that Cameron had a 1% equity stake in the bank, which could have been worth about £50m if the bank had floated at its hoped-for $7bn (£5bn) valuation. He is said to have told friends his stake was worth £60m, but other valuations suggested the bank could float for as much as £22bn, which could have resulted in a windfall of more than £200m for Cameron if he had a 1% stake.

Lex Greensill on Tuesday refused to answer Dame Angela Eagle’s questions about Cameron’s shareholding. He said he was “very careful about respecting the confidence of people who are employees in the company and I understand that Mr Cameron is giving evidence to you in two days’ time Dame Angela so perhaps it would be most optimal for you to ask that question directly of him”.

She replied: “Don’t worry I’m sure that some question along those lines will come from one of us.”

5. Do you feel it is appropriate for a former prime minister to lobby ministers on behalf of a private employer?

Cameron lobbied ministers – by text, WhatsApp, email and phone calls – during an intense four-month period at the beginning of the pandemic, including when financial markets were in freefall, begging the government to allow Greensill access to emergency loan support schemes.

In the messages, Cameron initially praised ministers for “doing a great job”, said he was “v free” and signed off “love Dc”. But when the Treasury refused to allow Greensill access to the support scheme, he described their decisions as “nuts” and “bonkers”. In one message to a senior civil servant he threatened to call all cabinet ministers unless the decision was reversed. “This seems bonkers. Am now calling CX [Sunak], Gove, everyone,” he said.

Rushanara Ali, a Labour MP and member of the select committee, told Greensill he was “using a former prime minister, bringing that position into disrepute, to profit”.

“You and Mr Cameron lost sight of what was appropriate behaviour. It is a Ponzi scheme, frankly it smacks of fraudulent behaviour,” she said on Tuesday.

6. Was Greensill a Ponzi scheme or operating a fraudulent business model?

Paul Myners, the former City minister, has previously told the committee that he believed Greensill had elements of a Ponzi scheme, including its alleged practice of issuing loans against invoices from nonexistent customers.

“I believe [Cameron] should have known and he should have asked questions which would have indicated that,” Lord Myners said in his evidence last month.

7. Were you aware that Greensill was in financial difficulty when you were lobbying ministers on its behalf?

Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, said the Bank first became aware of “a potential weakness” at Greensill in March 2020. This was the same time as Cameron’s lobbying stepped up a gear, before reaching a crescendo of messages in April.

Myners has suggested that Cameron should have been aware that Greensill was teetering on the brink of collapse at the time he was lobbying ministers on its behalf.

Cameron has previously said it was “nonsense” to suggest Greensill was in financial difficulty at the time.

8. How much has Greensill’s collapse cost taxpayers?

Myners has estimated that the bank’s failure has cost the public about £1bn, but said this could rise to £3-5bn when all the fallout from other businesses that may collapse as a result of Greensill failure including about 5,000 UK steelmaking jobs.

9. When you were prime minister you vowed to reform “the far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money”, which you said had “tainted our politics for too long”. Did your moral stance on the corrosive nature of lobbying change when you left office?

Cameron repeatedly criticised the influence of lobbying on politics both in opposition, and as prime minister. In the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal – in which MPs were found to have submitted claims for among other things a £1,600 floating duck house and a £2,200 bill for cleaning a moat – he warned that political lobbying would be “the next big scandal waiting to happen”.

During a speech soon after taking office he said: “We all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisers for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way.”

When he resigned as both prime minister and a Conservative MP shortly after losing the 2016 EU referendum, Cameron promised he would not become a political “distraction”.

10. Are slap-up lobbying lunches OK now?

He may have singled out lobbying lunches for criticism, but it has not stopped Cameron from offering to take officials out for slap-up lunches now he’s a lobbyist. In one of his many text messages to the Treasury’s top civil servant Tom Scholar, Cameron said: “Three questions: Is Sir Jon [Cunliffe] still at the bank? Do you have a number? Can I give you lunch once this budget is done? Love Dc.”

11. How did you end up camping in the desert with Lex Greensill and the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman? And why?

Cameron and Greensill visited Prince Mohammed, the Saudi prince accused of ordering the brutal murder of a journalist, in early 2020. They travelled there on Greensill’s private plane.

12. Lex Greensill claimed that in 2018 you brokered an introduction to Barack Obama that helped him build up his business empire. Did you introduce Greensill to Obama?

In an interview in 2018, Greensill told the Australian newspaper: “David wanted advice. It was really around, ‘How do we get credit to small companies and what things can we do?’ And then David introduced me to Barack Obama and I did a similar thing for the Obama administration.”

13. How many governments around the world did Cameron lobby on behalf of Greensill?

We know that Cameron lobbied a senior German official on behalf of Greensill in November 2020. Did he also lobby other governments?