Tory MPs will vote against Labour’s demand for an inquiry that could question witnesses in public.
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The government has rejected Labour’s call for a full parliamentary inquiry into lobbying and the contacts between government and Greensill Capital.
Boris Johnson has launched a review by a government lawyer into the finance firm’s links to David Cameron and top civil servants in his administration.
Labour wants a broader inquiry into lobbying by a cross-party panel of MPs.
The government says its review is the “right thing to do” and will order Tory MPs to vote against Labour’s plan.
Labour says the government “cannot be trusted to mark their own homework on this” and accused the prime minister of “whipping his MPs to vote to cover up Conservative cronyism”.
Instead it wants a new parliamentary committee to investigate lobbying, with the power to question witnesses, such as Mr Cameron, in public.
The party will attempt to set up such a committee by forcing a Commons vote on Wednesday afternoon, but the government says it will vote against the motion, making it unlikely to pass.
- It’s another word for trying to persuade the government to change its policies
- It can be done by individuals, companies, organisations and charities who contact ministers, backbench MPs and other politicians
- Some organisations and companies employ professional lobbyists to make their case for them
- Former MPs and civil servants often work as lobbyists
Calls to examine lobbying have intensified in the past week as more details emerge of ex-prime minister David Cameron’s efforts on behalf of the now-collapsed finance firm Greensill Capital.
In a new development on Tuesday, a lobbying watchdog revealed that a top civil servant had joined the company as part-time adviser while still working for the government.
The Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments said the Cabinet Office had “agreed” to Bill Crothers taking on the role but its chairman Lord Pickles complained of a “lack of transparency” over the situation.
Mr Crothers insisted the process had been “transparent”.
Labour’s shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves said: “It is truly extraordinary that a serving civil servant could at the same time be paid to work for a private sector firm that has a clear interest in government business,”
“So if this was allowed under government rules the current rules need to be change and if there was a breaking of the rules then we need to get to the bottom of this.
“We need a proper inquiry to get to the bottom of this, not the half-hearted part-inquiry that the government have announced so far.”
But ex-Conservative minister Tobias Ellwood dismissed Labour’s call as “political opportunism”.
He urged MPs not to “jump on this bandwagon” but instead wait for the government-ordered review to be completed.
The widespread unease about this story is growing rather than fading away.
For people critical of the way these things are handled, the news about Bill Crothers is another piece of damning evidence that the rules aren’t tight enough.
The tentacles of this mess are pulling in more and more political characters – and there’s a hunt for other senior officials who had similar arrangements.
Labour see this as real ammunition in a broader political attack on the Conservatives that they are trying to build – whether that is PPE contacts that went to people with links to the Tory Party; contacts between Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick and a property developer and even who paid the bills for Boris Johnson’s wallpaper.
It is something that can be very toxic for the government, and that is why senior Conservatives will privately tell you that they are worried.
There is also a wider consensus that the systems meant to guard against all of this are not strong enough.
Concerns over lobbying have grown following the news that Mr Cameron – who had a financial interest in Greensill – tried unsuccessfully to persuade the government to increase the firm’s access to government-backed loans.
Mr Cameron has insisted he did not break any codes of conduct or rules on lobbying, although he has acknowledged in a statement he should have communicated with the government “through only the most formal of channels”.
He said he welcomed the government’s inquiry, to be run by lawyer Nigel Boardman.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Mr Boardman would be given the “maximum possible access” to establish the facts and a Cabinet Office spokesman said the review would be “wide-ranging”.
It has now been expanded beyond its initial remit to consider the new details about Mr Crothers’s work for Greensill.