Letwin’s City job under scrutiny
The new Tory shadow chancellor yesterday was pressed to end his second job as a merchant banker.
Although Oliver Letwin’s directorship of NM Rothschild bank has been declared in the register of MPs’ interests, Labour MP Kevin Brennan said there was a clear conflict of interest.
The Cardiff West MP said although Mr Letwin was not “a minister of the crown” he was the shadow chancellor and as such would be dealing with matters pertaining to the City, “relating to business and investments and so on, and criticising and formulating alternative government policy on that.”
He added: “I would have thought that the potential for a conflict of interest here would have meant it would have been better for him to stand aside.”
In reply Mr Letwin said: “There are strict rules and I shall obey them as I did when I was shadow chief secretary [to the Treasury] – punctiliously.
“In my view it would be a pity if parliament were to stop people who are not ministers from having those kinds of interests because I think it is valuable that I know some, have current knowledge, of how industry and the city are faring under the government.”
Mr Letwin complained that unlike Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown he did not have access to “600,000 civil servants.”
A Rothschild spokesman said: “We don’t believe that there are any barriers preventing Mr Letwin from continuing to work for us.”
Mr Brennan has muted the idea of “a shadow ministerial code of conduct” akin to the code for Government ministers.
