Speaker questions how MPs will hold David Cameron to account
David Cameron is set to suffer a massive pay cut after sensationally returning to frontline politics as Rishi Sunak’s new Foreign Secretary.
At this afternoon’s press briefing, the Prime Minister’s spokesman confirmed that David Cameron will be paid the standard Lords salary for a Secretary of State of £104,360.
They also specified he won’t claim the House of Lords’ cushty £315-a-day expenses allowance.
However Parliamentary rules state that a member of the Lords serving as a minister is not entitled to this allowance at all.
Questions had been raised about whether Mr Cameron would continue to claim the allowance granted to all former Prime Ministers to run their office.
READ MORE: ‘Remainer plant’: David Cameron’s return slammed as ultimate Brexit betrayal
The allowance runs to £115,000 a year.
Records show that David Cameron has almost maxed out this allowance every year since at least 2019.
Research by the Institute for Government revealed the Prime Minister claimed £111,457 in 2019, falling to £108,312 in 2022/23.
While Mr Cameron’s new taxpayer-funded salary of £104,360 is over three times higher than the average UK pay packet, it represents a massive pay cut for the former Prime Minister.
In his seven years away from frontline politics, Mr Cameron took up a number of highly-paid jobs, not least as an advisor to the now-collapsed finance firm Greensill Capital.
Mr Cameron’s role with the firm backfired when an inquiry concluded he had shown a “significant lack of judgement” in lobbying for the company.
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Despite the lobbying scandal, it was revealed David Cameron was paid over $1 million a year for his role (£722,000).
It was also claimed Mr Cameron made around $10 million (£7 million) from Greensill Capital before the firm collapsed.
According to a BBC Panorama investigation, documents showed the former PM received the sum from cashing in shares he held in the company worth around £3.3 million in 2019.
During a gruelling quizzing from MPs in 2021 around the scandal, Mr Cameron refused to reveal his annual salary, but conceded he was “paid a generous annual amount – more than I was paid as Prime Minister”.
After leaving politics, Mr Cameron also took up a number of other jobs, though his remuneration for the roles is unknown.
In 2016 he became Chairman of the Patrons at the National Citizen Service, and became President of Alzheimer’s Research UK.
He also advised a number of businesses, concentrating on financial and medical tech.
In 2023 Mr Cameron joined New York University Abu Dhabi as a politics lecturer.
Speaking to the BBC’s Chris Mason this afternoon, Mr Cameron promised he would be dropping his other roles.
“Today I resigned from all of those things, from all of the business I’ve been helping, all of the other things I’ve been doing including a professor at NYU; that all stops.
“I now have one job, as foreign secretary of the United Kingdom and I’m very proud to work with our Prime Minister to make sure that our country can be as secure and as prosperous as possible.”
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