Question's For Cameron Over Companies 'Buying Influence'

David Cameron is facing tough questions on Tuesday over his party's dealings with an exclusive club that is reportedly paying to meet and influence ministers.

According to reports, companies are paying up to £1,800 a head to meet ministers, and the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, policing minister, Nick Herbert, and climate change minister, Lord Taylor, have all addressed the exclusive invite-only events.

According to the Guardian on Tuesday, the events have been organised by a networking business called the Chemistry Club, and are hosted at the high-end Sartoria restaurant in Mayfair, London.

Responding to the news, Jon Trickett, Labour's Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, said such networking events were previously banned by the Cabinet Office.

"These revelations leave serious questions for David Cameron to answer if he is to avoid the suspicion that lobbyists believe they can buy influence with his government. In opposition David Cameron said lobbying was the next scandal waiting to happen, and here we have a company charging thousands of pounds for dinner with his ministers, special advisers and top civil servants.

"We need meaningful regulation of lobbying, until the Prime Minister grasps this and listens to Labour's reform proposals his government will be dogged by questions of this kind."

The payment of influence is reminiscent of the "Cash-for-Questions" scandal that was instrumental in pulling down the Conservative Government in the early 1990s.

The 1994 story, which was also broken by The Guardian newspaper, alleged that London's most successful parliamentary lobbyist, Ian Greer of Ian Greer Associates, had bribed two Conservative Members of Parliament in exchange for asking parliamentary questions, and other tasks, on behalf of the Egyptian owner of Harrods department store, Mohamed Al-Fayed.

(DW)