A former head of the department reveals former prime minister David Cameron's lobbying for Greensill Capital last spring wasted a lot of valuable time amid the Covid-19 crisis. Permanent secretary at the Treasury until 2016, Lord Nick Macpherson called it “unusual” for there to have so much engagement between top Treasury officials and the small firm last year.
Speaking before the Treasury select committee, he said, “Once you say the scheme doesn't work, it's quite tedious continuing to have meetings and that displaces important resources. It was disappointing that officials' time was wasted when that was a valuable commodity because of the wider crisis.” He said it was a “huge tribute” to officials that they did not ultimately give into pressure.
The comments come at a time when former city minister Lord Paul Myners suggested the Greensill collapse could cost taxpayers about £1bn through different guarantees. He predicted a further £3bn-5bn impact on the wider economy given the predicament of Liberty Steel. He said senior officials would not have given the firm so much time without pressure from Cameron and Chancellor Rishi Sunak. “The chancellor said he was pushing his officials, and that I think explains why there were nine meetings. That would have been a significant distraction ... it does seem tiresome at the very minimum that he was required to spend so much time on Greensill,” Myners said.
Calling the talks an “extraordinary waste” of the time of Charles Roxburgh, second permanent secretary to the Treasury, Myners said, “I have no doubt that he would not have done that had it not been for the pressing by David Cameron on the Chancellor of the Exchequer.” Sunak had released a text message to Cameron in which he said he was “pushing” officials to find ways to continue discussing Greensill's requests, including access to the Bank of England's CCFF corporate finance facility scheme and an increase in the threshold for Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme. The Treasury however, rejected Cameron's lobbying attempts.
Myners said Greensill was already in “deep difficulties” when it was lobbying the Treasury to change its Covid-19 debt schemes. Talking about Cameron's involvement, Myners said. “He was a salesman. He was offering to oil the wheels. I don't know how much he was bothered by what was in the product rather than selling the product.”
