Rishi Sunak has been urged to say if David Cameron will “give full public disclosure for his work for Chinese interests”.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer pressed the Prime Minister over Lord Cameron’s work for a Chinese investment fund, which he claimed may have links with the Chinese state.
Former prime minister Lord Cameron was appointed Foreign Secretary in Mr Sunak’s reshuffle on Monday.
The reshuffle also saw former home secretary Suella Braverman ousted, with Mr Sunak hailing a new “strong and united team” in Government.
On Tuesday, she accused Mr Sunak in a parting broadside of being “uncertain” and “weak”.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir said: “The Prime Minister obviously thinks so little of his own MPs that he’s had to peel David Cameron away from his seven-year exile in a shepherd’s hut and make him Foreign Secretary.
“But a few months ago the Intelligence and Security Committee said that the now-Foreign Secretary’s role in a Chinese investment fund may have been, and this is their words, engineered by the Chinese state.”
He added: “When will he instruct the Foreign Secretary to give full public disclosure for his work for Chinese interests?”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was “delighted” Lord Cameron had returned, saying his “unrivalled experience” will help Britain navigate an “uncertain world”, adding: “Like every other Government minister, he will go through the normal process with the independent adviser.”
He said China presents an “epoch-defining challenge” and accused the Labour Party of having “taken almost £700,000 from an alleged Chinese agent”.
Labour leader Sir Keir meanwhile claimed Ms Braverman had been “unfit for office” as Home Secretary and questioned the Prime Minister over whether he felt “ashamed” over putting her in office.
Mr Sunak said the Conservatives had “restored this country’s financial security” after Labour’s time in charge, adding: “It is a bit rich to take lectures on security from a man who wanted to make (Jeremy Corbyn) prime minister of our country.”
But the Labour leader hit back at the Prime Minister’s record, telling the Commons: “He has had three reshuffles, a forgotten conference speech, an empty King’s Speech, he even found time to fanboy Elon Musk, but not one of them has made the slightest different to the lives of working people.
“If we had a pound for every time we had a reset, the cost-of-living crisis would be over long ago.
“He likes to think of himself as the man from Silicon Valley. The tech savvy Californian. The country’s first AI PM.
“And yet his big idea is to keep turning his Government on and off at the wall and hope that we will see signs of life.”
Echoing the words of Lord Cameron at his final prime minister’s questions, Sir Keir asked Mr Sunak: “Is he starting to feel that, as somebody once said, he was the future once?”
The Prime Minister claimed he had “slightly missed the end” of Sir Keir’s question due to shouting from MPs, and while he welcomed the Labour leader’s question on the cost of living, Mr Sunak mixed up his words on high prices, claiming it was “the number one challenge facing countries up and down family”.
The Prime Minister went on: “He mentioned it, but what he failed to recognise and he talked about delivering on policies, today was the day that we delivered on the most important pledge I made to halve inflation.”
Conservative MP Sir Bill Cash (Stone) later sought assurances that Lord Cameron’s policy and conduct of EU-related affairs will be “consistent” with the Government’s 2019 election manifesto and the 2016 referendum, adding: “And that he is now fully committed to UK parliamentary sovereignty, self-government and democracy in accordance with the Government’s subsequent legislation”.
Mr Sunak said he could give him that assurance.
