It was her robust questioning of the former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond that first brought Andrea Leadsom to political prominence. During the Treasury select committee’s review of Diamond’s part, as head of the bank, in the Libor rate-fixing scandal, the Conservative MP was viewed as having been masterly in her command of the subject and her attack on the banking sector. The session in July 2012 came just days after a dramatic drop of 15% in the bank’s share price as the city reacted to the crisis. Leadsom’s performance was put down to her knowledge of the sector as a former banker and a former employee of Barclays. But it also summed up the anger felt by the public and the bank’s shareholders. What was not known at the time was that Leadsom was herself a shareholder in the bank. The revelation comes as part of a Guardian investigation into the shareholdings of scores of members of parliament, which until now have been in effect secret.
The rules at the time required MPs to register any shareholdings worth more than their parliamentary salary. The threshold for disclosure today is £70,000. Leadsom’s shares may have been below the threshold, but the rules also required members to disclose shareholdings that might be thought to influence their actions in parliament. These rules included proceedings in select committees and required MPs to declare their interests at the beginning of their remarks. Leadsom made no disclosure as she questioned Diamond, who resigned as chief executive the day before he gave evidence. Her ownership of undeclared shares could be seen as a conflict of interest and the revelation raises questions about the adequacy of parliament’s transparency rules.
A spokesperson for Leadsom said: “Dame Andrea Leadsom’s declarations have been transparent and accurate in accordance with the rules and the law at all times.” Leadsom’s shares came to light in a review of Barclays’ shareholder register, which was gained by the Guardian after formal legal requests. The register does not detail the number of shares Leadsom had in the bank at the time of her questioning of Diamond. It shows she first became a shareholder in Barclays in 2002 and that her direct ownership of the shares ended in May 2014, a month after she was appointed economic secretary to the Treasury and City minister. It is unclear whether Leadsom completely ended her interest in the company or transferred her shares into a blind trust, a mechanism that is intended to allow ministers to keep their financial interests at arm’s length. Leadsom did not respond to questions about whether she still owned Barclays shares. A summary of her taxes released during the 2016 Conservative leadership contest, from which she withdrew while up against Theresa May, revealed that in 2015-16 she received £2,324 in dividends and had capital gains of £9,270, suggesting she still benefitted from shares beyond 2014.