David Cameron has hit back at claims Greensill Capital had been begging for access to the government-backed Covid loan scheme.
Cameron said it was “nonsense” to say the finance firm has been “in difficulty” when he lobbed on its behalf.
But Labour said the company, which later collapsed, had been “desperate for access to taxpayer money”.
On Thursday, the Treasury released 40 pages of messages relating to its contact with Cameron and Greensill. And the Bank of England has said Cameron contacted it multiple times.
In June last year, Greensill was accredited as a lender to “midsized and larger” firms under the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS).
For Labour, shadow chancellor Annaliese Dodds said: “We need to follow the money. Greensill was carrying the begging bowl from the Bank of England to the Treasury and back.
“It was desperate for access to taxpayer money, and the government granted that access by accrediting it to the CLBILS scheme in June [2020].”
She added that the chancellor and the Treasury had done “nothing when they were aware Greensill was deep in the red three months earlier”.
Cameron’s spokesman said the company had not been “asking for a government loan or direct support in any way”.
“The Treasury letter rejecting the proposals in June makes clear that Greensill reported that market conditions were improving,” he added. “So the idea that Greensill was in difficulty at that stage is nonsense.”
Three parliamentary inquiries and a lawyer-led government review are looking into Cameron’s work for Greensill, which fell into administration in March this year.
The former Conservative leader, who started working for the company as an adviser two years after leaving Downing Street, has insisted he broke no lobbying rules but accepted he should have contacted ministers using more formal channels.
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