DAVID Cameron has refused to say how much money he earnt while working for Greensill Capital.
The Foreign Secretary was found by a committee of MPs in 2021 to have had a “significant lack of judgement” in his intensive text message lobbying of ministers and high-ranking civil servants on behalf of the financial firm.
Cameron has never said how much cash he pocketed during the scandal, but the BBC has obtained documents that suggest he earnt around £10 million.
The former prime minister claimed that figure was incorrect when he was asked about it by Laura Kuenssberg, but then would not say what the right figure was.
Instead, he claimed he did not need to confirm anything because he was a “private citizen” during that time and attempted to brush off the matter by talking about his charitable work for Alzheimer’s.
When asked if the £10m figure was right, Cameron said: “No that’s not true. While I was out of office, the most important thing I did was to help Alzheimer’s Research UK raise millions of pounds for people battling with dementia. That was the number one thing I did.
“This issue on Greensill has been examined by all these committees, all these inquires…”
Kuenssberg interrupted him to press him again on how much money he had earnt from Greensill.
Cameron went on: “What I’ve done since coming back into office is resign every other job I have, I’ve given all the information to the person responsible for registering ministers’ interests, and they have the information about the jobs that I had and things I did and they make a decision about declaration.
“I was a private citizen between 2016 and when I took this job.”
When she asked why he wouldn’t say how much he had earnt, Cameron said: “I was a private citizen, I had a number different interests and things I did, including important charitable work. I think as a private citizen you’re entitled to do that and that’s what I’ve done.”
The Treasury select committee said in 2021 that it was inappropriate of Cameron to send 62 messages to former colleagues pleading for them to help the bank in which the ex-PM held a “very significant personal economic interest”.
Greensill Capital specialised in supply chain finance, where businesses borrow money to pay their suppliers, but collapsed in March that year after losing insurance cover for loans issued to its customers.
The committee’s report found that Cameron did not break lobbying rules, but said “that reflects on the insufficient strength of the rules”.
It said Cameron’s behaviour in the saga highlighted a “strong case for strengthening [the rules]” to prevent ex-prime ministers from lobbying serving ministers in search of personal economic gain.
On the Kuenssberg show, Cameron’s claim the £10m figure was wrong was described as “weak”.
In a Sky News interview, Cameron also said he could not remember receiving any detailed brief about the Post Office Horizon scandal while he was prime minister but apologised for the “appalling miscarriage of justice”.
He added he had not been aware “of the scale of this issue”.
The scandal saw hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly convicted of stealing between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Fujitsu accounting software made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.
Elsewhere in the Kuenssberg interview, Cameron said legal action South Africa took against Israel at the International Court of Justice last week – accusing it of genocide in Gaza – was “unhelpful” and “shouldn’t be happening”.
He was also quizzed about a decision for the UK to launch air strikes on Houthi sites in Yemen, in which he refused to accept what the UK and US were doing would escalate the situation.
The UK and US launched targeted strikes on military facilities last week following attacks by the Houthi movement on ships in the Red Sea.
Cameron said the air strikes “send a very clear message”.
