George Eustice – David Cameron’s behaviour ‘is acceptable’
Both Andrew Marr and Sophy Ridge were joined this morning by the Environment Secretary George Eustice – and much of their conversations focused on the recent lobbying debacle sparked by the former Prime Minister’s texts to the Chancellor Rishi Sunak. Cameron was attempting to secure support loans on behalf of the financial services firm Greensill Capital, but was unsuccessful and the business filed for insolvency in March. Marr questioned Eustice over whether the current lobbying rules were too soft and ineffectual:
AM: Do you think that what David Cameron has done is acceptable?
GE: …Well, it is acceptable because [it was] within the rules… He left office some five years ago, and you can’t begrudge people going on to another career…
AM: I put it to you… that this doesn’t pass the smell test…
GE: …The issue always is how did a minister act after that conversation, and I think it’s very clear… that the Chancellor has not acted at all improperly.
Boardman review ‘will ask all of these questions’
Marr also asked why a 2019 meeting between Cameron, his colleague Lex Greensill and the Health Secretary Matt Hancock had not been a matter of public record. The Sunday Times published details of the meeting last week, at which it is speculated that the three might have discussed Greensill’s ‘Earnd’ payments system, which was subsequently adopted by a number of NHS trusts:
AM: The system is not working, surely?… When there is a meeting of this kind, and government business is discussed, it must be declared publicly – and this one wasn’t…
GE: …This is why the Prime Minister has said there are questions that have been asked. Let’s get to the bottom of this properly… We do now have a review, which is going to ask all of these questions.
‘Nothing wrong’ with ministers having financial interests
The Health Secretary was implicated in another aspect of the lobbying morass, when it was revealed that his sister Emily Gilruth was a co-director of a storage firm called Topwood Ltd. Hancock disclosed that he owns 20 shares in the company, which was awarded contracts with the NHS in England and Wales. Sophy Ridge put it to Eustice that the system could use an overhaul:
GE: [Matt Hancock] has had no role whatsoever in any procurement around this business. There’s nothing wrong with ministers having financial interests, provided they declare them in the appropriate way…
SR: As you say, he’s followed the rules, but some people looking at this might think… it’s the rules themselves that are broken?
GE: I’m not sure that I would agree with that… He declared it, he did the right thing.
The systems we have in place are ‘pretty good’
Despite the avalanche of reviews being launched into lobbying’s grey areas, which include the Boardman review into David Cameron, Simon Case’s review into the civil service, and Parliament’s own major review by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs committee, Eustice argued that the system only needed a few minor tweaks:
GE: Fundamentally, I think that the systems we have in place, with ministers declaring interests, with the ministerial code… is actually a pretty good one, but that’s not to say that you couldn’t make tweaks or changes, and obviously there’ll be a time and a place for that after these reviews have concluded.
Nicola Sturgeon – ‘We still have work to do’ on education
Ridge went on to interview Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. With less than three weeks to go before the Holyrood elections, Ridge asked her about the Scottish government’s record on education:
NS: We still have work to do… The attainment gap has reduced [and] we’ve expanded dramatically early years education… We now have record numbers of people from poorer, more deprived communities going into higher education… I am not going to sit here and say that it’s job done.
We have ‘not done enough’ to combat drugs deaths
Ridge also confronted Sturgeon with Scotland’s figures for deaths from drug abuse, which remain by far and away the highest per head across Europe, roughly three and a half times the rate in England and Wales:
SR: Over 1,200 people [died] of drug misuse last year… How is that acceptable?
NS: It’s not, and I’ve been very candid about that. We’ve tried to tackle the drugs deaths, but we can’t look at the figures… and conclude that what we have done has been enough or has been effective enough… We have set aside a budget over the next few years of £250 million… so there is a package… to turn it around… We’re determined to do better in future.
‘I’m not going to work with Alex Salmond’
Sturgeon’s predecessor as First Minister, Alex Salmond, is standing as a candidate for the new Alba party, which is seeking to build a ‘pro-independence super-majority’ in the Scottish Parliament. Ridge asked Sturgeon if she would be willing to bury the hatchet in pursuit of their common goal:
NS: I’m not going to work with Alex Salmond. Firstly, I have concerns about his personal conduct that he hasn’t acknowledged or apologised for… I don’t agree with his approach to independence because I think it is risking putting people off… I also don’t know what Alba stands for.
Andrei Kelin – Russia is ‘not a threat to any country, including Ukraine’
Earlier in the week, Marr interviewed Andrei Kelin, the Russian Ambassador to the UK. Recent reports from Ukrainian intelligence sources have suggested that there may be 40,000 soldiers massing along Russia’s eastern border with Ukraine, with another 40,000 stationed in the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed back in 2014. Kelin insisted that the Russian troops, along with their considerable volume of heavy duty equipment, were merely in place as an exercise:
AK: We have no attention at all to be aggressive… and we are not a threat to any country, including the Ukraine… If Ukrainian forces… decide to… kill Russians, of course we are going to respond…
AM: Do you think we are quite close to war on this border?
AK: I don’t think so, no.
Alexei Navalny ‘will not be allowed to die in prison’
Marr also inquired about the Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny, who is currently in prison on charges of embezzlement. Navalny infamously had to receive treatment in Germany last year after experiencing poisoning while on an internal flight. Marr asked why Navalny, who is reportedly in a poor enough condition to die ‘within days’, was being refused a visit from his personal doctor:
AK: He has got necessary medical treatment, and believe me, we will take care of his medical treatment…
AM: … Will he be allowed to die in prison?
AK: No, of course he will not be allowed to die in prison, but… he behaves like a hooligan… to attract attention…
AM: …Will you release him?
AM: If he will behave normally, he will have a chance to be released early.
Rachel Reeves – Carwyn Jones ‘was not lobbying government ministers’
The shadow cabinet office minister Rachel Reeves began her interview by decrying ‘Tory sleaze’, but found herself unable to account for former Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones’s post-government role at Liberty Steel, for which he was also accused of breaking the ministerial code:
RR: His job at Liberty… had no connection to Greensill… David Cameron was lobbying for private interest… He was not lobbying government ministers… for commercial interests…
AM: It’s not just Tory sleaze… There is a problem in the system…
RR: Standards have fallen so far in the last 11 years… Tory sleaze is back and it is bigger than ever… And with lobbying it takes two to tango.
‘No stone should go unturned’ in lobbying investigations
And finally, Reeves also had some difficultly expressing her party’s policy on whether trade unions should be included in Labour’s proposed lobbying register:
AM: Do you want them on the lobbying register…?
RR: It is important that no stone goes unturned, but the trade unions are a force for good in this country… They have been pushing for the rights of working people and they are essential for a healthy democracy.
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