David Cameron is under pressure to disclose the businesses and organisations he worked for before he was granted a peerage to become foreign secretary.
The former prime minister left the Commons after stepping down as an MP in 2016, shortly after he departed No 10 on the back of the European Union referendum.
Lord Cameron has taken on the role previously held by James Cleverly who was shifted to replace the sacked home secretary Suella Braverman. It caps a remarkable turnaround for the former Tory leader, who first entered Parliament as an MP in 2001.
According to the Guardian, the Foreign Office has refused to say which roles Lord Cameron held. It is usual practice for this type of information to be made public as the person’s financial and work interests could be in conflict with his or her departmental work. This could be especially critical in the case of the foreign secretary if he has had relations with overseas governments or businesses.
But while MPs are subject to scrutiny over interests, Lord Cameron has been able to bypass this by being appointed as a peer.
“He must be fully transparent in his declaration of interests, including about who he has recently lobbied for,” Layla Moran, of the Liberal Democrats, told the Guardian on Tuesday.
What jobs has David Cameron had since leaving Parliament in 2016?
On Monday, Lord Cameron said he would be resigning from all his business roles upon being made foreign secretary but did not say which roles these would be.
His website states: “Since leaving 10 Downing Street, David has continued focusing on issues he advanced while in office: championing Britain’s cutting-edge medical research; supporting life chances for young people and building a bigger, stronger society; and promoting international development.”
According to David Cameron’s own LinkedIn page, he has had the following experiences:
- 2016 to present: Chairman of patrons at National Citizen Service Trust,
- 2017 to present: Board member of the One Campaign,
- 2017 to present: Chairman of International Growth Centre,
- 2017 to present: President and board member at Alzheimer's Research UK,
- 2018 to present: Co-chairman of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
In this time he also published his memoir For the Record, which was published in 2019.
The list of jobs is not thought to include everything he has done and it is well known that Lord Cameron has taken on additional jobs even if his full CV has not been made public. Most notably he worked as a lobbyist for Greensill Capital, the financial firm on whose behalf he approached members of the British government to help prevent a collapse in 2021.
He has worked for Illumina, a gene-sequencing company that won a £123 million government contract during the pandemic.
Other positions are more are less clear-cut. An online commerce company called ChaChing listed both Lord Cameron and Theresa May's chancellor, Philip Hammond, on its board. However, ChaChing appears to no longer exist, while it is known Lord Cameron has had some work lobbying on behalf of the Chinese government for a belt and road port construction project in Sri Lanka.
He has also said he has been a professor at New York University – the one role he mentioned on Monday upon confirming he would be resigning from nongovernmental work. It is unclear if his bulk resignation also includes his work as a board member for charities.
Both Lord Cameron and the Foreign Office have been approached by the Standard for a comment.
