Money

Greensill worked within UK government without contract


Lex Greensill, the financier who secured a place at the heart of the British government, acquired his privileged role without any contract or explanation of his job, two senior Whitehall officials revealed on Monday.

Simon Case, head of the UK civil service, told MPs he was “alarmed” that Greensill, who led the recently collapsed finance company Greensill Capital, was handed an advisory role and a desk in the Cabinet Office.

Case was giving evidence to the Commons public administration committee alongside Darren Tierney, head of propriety and ethics for the civil service.

Tierney said the appointment of Bill Crothers, a former chief procurement officer, to a role at Greensill while still in government had been authorised by the late Jeremy Heywood, then the cabinet secretary, and John Manzoni, the former chief executive of the civil service. Heywood, who died in 2018, was also instrumental in bringing Greensill into government.

Following the Crothers’ revelation, the Cabinet Office has investigated so-called “double hatting” of civil servants working in the public and private sectors. Case said approximately a hundred officials had outside roles but no conflict of interests had been identified.

An internal probe into Greensill’s role as an adviser in David Cameron’s administration did not explain how his conflicts of interest had been avoided, Case added. Cameron, who became an employee of the company, subsequently actively lobbied ministers in Johnson’s government on behalf of Greensill.

Case said there were scant details about why Greensill was appointed as a government adviser in 2012. The financier is known to have worked with Heywood at Morgan Stanley before Heywood was appointed cabinet secretary.

“We cannot explain how these decisions were taken or why . . . it looks like there were conflicts and we are not clear on how they were managed. From our cursory look, we can’t see the evidence.” Case added that Greensill’s appointment “doesn’t look right” or “appropriate”.

Greensill carried a business card describing himself as a “senior adviser” to the prime minister’s office. Case confirmed he was given security clearance for access to Downing Street and the Cabinet Office, but could not state what he was doing.

The evidence from Case and Tierney came amid a swirl of accusations — labelled “sleaze” by the opposition Labour party — into the conduct of successive Conservative governments, including new claims about Boris Johnson’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Johnson denied multiple press reports claiming he had said he would rather let “bodies pile high in their thousands” than order a third Covid-19 lockdown in England. Labour’s Rachel Reeves accused the prime minister of “corrupting standards in public life”.

Asked if he had used those words, Johnson said: “No, but again, I think the important thing, I think, [is] that people want us to get on and do as a government is to make sure that the lockdowns work, and they have.”

Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, said he was astonished to read accounts of the prime minister’s words. “If he did say those things he has got to explain it.”

But Michael Gove, Cabinet Office minister, told MPs he it was “incredible” to think Johnson had made those comments. “I was in that room, I never heard language of that kind,” he said.

The explosive allegations come amid an increasingly toxic briefing war between Downing Street and Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former chief adviser, who believes the prime minister has mishandled the Covid-19 crisis.

Cummings will give evidence to MPs next month on the pandemic and his allies have suggested he has damning evidence to support his claims about Johnson’s prevarication.

Johnson believes Cummings is responsible for a series of damaging leaks about him and his partner Carrie Symonds, who oversaw a controversial refurbishment of the Downing Street flat.

In a blog post, Cummings denied he had been responsible for leaking information of November’s coronavirus lockdown, instead pinning the blame on Henry Newman, a senior aide to the prime minister.

Case, who is investigating the leak, told MPs that the “chatty rat”, as the leaker has been dubbed, may never be found and the conclusion of his inquiry will be released in the coming weeks. He also said it had not broken national security laws.



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