David Cameron is under pressure to reveal where his multimillion-pound personal fortune is invested after the latest register of ministerial interests revealed that his wealth is managed by a so-called blind trust.
Transparency campaigners and opposition parties called on the foreign secretary to be completely transparent about his investments in order to avoid potential conflicts of interest with his role running UK foreign policy.
He has already faced calls to disclose the businesses he was working for before being appointed to the role last month, after the Foreign Office refused to reveal which jobs and clients he was giving up to take on the role.
Lord Cameron has had a series of jobs since he left No 10 in 2016, including lobbying the government on behalf of a controversial now-collapsed financial firm, Greensill, for which he earned a reported £7m, and which led to an influence scandal.
Cameron’s blind trust brings to 10 the number of ministers with such arrangements. They include Rishi Sunak, Jeremy Hunt, Grant Shapps, Tom Tugendhat and ministers in the Lords.
In separate declarations on gifts and hospitality, Sunak registered one “social meeting” with the billionaire media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and another with his heir Lachlan, who took over the reins of Fox and News Corp this year.
In the latest ministerial interests declarations, under financial disclosures, Cameron declared: “Blind trust / blind management arrangement,” and he also highlighted that he was a prospective beneficiary of a family trust over which he had no oversight.
Steve Goodrich, the head of research and investigations at Transparency International UK, said: “Secretaries of state are entrusted with significant powers and responsibilities, so it’s integral to integrity in politics that potential conflicts between their public role and private interests are managed effectively.
“Knowing what investments ministers have, and where, is crucial to understanding whether they may be abusing their position for personal gain. The only thing blind trusts do is blind the public from where money is invested, and the corruption risks these present. The ministerial code is clear that where conflicts of interests are unavoidable it may be necessary to divest funds, yet how are we to know whether this is the case when it’s hidden in a trust arrangement?”
When he became prime minister in 2010, Cameron sold his investments rather than move them into a blind trust, saying it was an “even simpler and more straightforward” way of managing his wealth while in Downing Street.
At the time, he told MPs: “If any of the companies in which I had previously had a shareholding had any dealings with the government, there was no way that, even if somebody could look inside a blind trust, they could find any conflict of interest. That is why I sold the shares. It was quite a sensible thing to do.”
The Liberal Democrat chief whip, Wendy Chamberlain, said: “This is yet another Conservative cover-up. The public deserves to know the full list of Cameron’s clients and any potential conflict of interest.
“Rishi Sunak’s promise to govern with integrity and accountability has been left in tatters. Once again it’s one rule for Conservative ministers and another for everyone else. The full list of David Cameron’s financial interests when he took the role needs to be published immediately. If he has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear.”
Among the five new members of Sunak’s cabinet since his reshuffle last month, Esther McVey confirmed in the ministerial declarations that she was no longer a GB News presenter.
McVey, who became minister without portfolio in the Cabinet Office and has been unofficially nicknamed the “minister for common sense”, had previously got into trouble in 2021 for failing to report her position as a correspondent for GB News.
In the latest register she declared that her husband, Philip Davies, is an MP, but did not go on to explain that Davies, with whom she presented a GB News show, continues to be a contributor to the channel.
Laura Trott, who became the chief secretary to the Treasury, declared third-party managed equity Isa and pension funds under her financial interests and that her husband is a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
