Uber lobbyists met with UK ministers between 2014 and 2016 as the controversial taxi app was in the midst of tough negotiations to gain access to the lucrative British market. A secret meeting with Osborne in California was also attended by senior Google executives and took place just months before he unveiled what turned out to be a completely ineffective tax on tech companies. Q&A
What are Uber records?
projection The Uber Files is a global investigation based on a trove of 124,000 documents leaked to the Guardian. The data consists of emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges between the top executives of the Silicon Valley giant, as well as memos, presentations, notebooks, briefing documents and invoices. The leaked records cover 40 countries and span from 2013 to 2017, the period when Uber was aggressively expanding around the world. They reveal how the company broke the law, deceived police and regulators, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments around the world. To facilitate a global public interest investigation, the Guardian shared the data with 180 journalists in 29 countries through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The investigation was managed and led by the Guardian with the ICIJ. In a statement, Uber said: “We have not and will not condone past behavior that is clearly inconsistent with our current values. Instead, we’re asking the public to judge us based on what we’ve done in the last five years and what we’ll do in the years to come.” Thanks for your response. The revelation will rekindle questions about whether Uber enlisted Osborne and other supportive Tory cabinet ministers to pressure then-London mayor Boris Johnson to scale back proposed minicamping reforms in the fall of 2015. At the time, Johnson said he was overwhelmed by “rampant, frothing, free-market conservatives” who opposed a proposed tightening of regulations on private hire vehicles. By January 2016 it was reported that Uber had won a major victory when Transport for London (TfL) abandoned the proposals. It is not clear exactly what was discussed in all the secret meetings, which are revealed in Uber files, a trove of some 124,000 Uber documents leaked to the Guardian. George Osborne (left) and Boris Johnson in 2015. Photo: WPA/Getty Images During a critical period in the company’s expansion, its lobbyists met Osborne and Hancock, as well as Michael Gove, Priti Patel, Sajid Javid and Ed Vaizey, Uber documents show. None of these meetings were disclosed by the relevant agencies. Experts say the secret meetings reveal a number of lobbying loopholes in the UK’s guidelines, leading to renewed calls for an overhaul of the transparency code. Last year, the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended that “the Government should review the categories of published information to close the loophole through which informal lobbying is not disclosed in departmental announcements”. Susan Hawley, the executive director of Spotlight on Corruption, said: “You or I cannot have dinner with George Osborne and bend his ear about what we would like to happen to the economy. It perfectly captures the problem with lobbying and how vested interests capture ministers and decision-making.”
“A private affair, no employees”
In August 2014, Osborne visited California, where the chancellor was invited to a “little dinner” by Rachel Whetstone. The wife of David Cameron’s one-time political guru, Steve Hilton, was a longtime personal friend of the Camerons as well as Osborne. Rachel Whetstone in 2012. Photo: Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images Whetstone was then head of communications and public policy at Google, one of Uber’s most notable investors. Within nine months, she would become Uber’s senior vice president of policy and communications. About a dozen other guests were invited that night, including Google co-founder Larry Page and then-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, the leaked documents show. The incident was just months before Osborne announced his now-maligned ‘Google tax’, which failed to crack down on US multinationals shifting profits from the UK. The leaked documents also suggest that Osborne was the star of an event that Uber thought was a business meeting. Before he accepted the invitation, one executive wrote to Kalanick: “We will get you in front of Osborne when you are in London, but this is a much more private matter, with no staff or employees… I think you will make good use of your time.” The Treasury never disclosed that the meeting took place. A spokesman for Osborne, now an investment banker at London firm Robey Warshaw, said: “The premise of this inquiry is wrong: not only was it secret, it was the coalition government’s explicit and publicly announced policy to meet with global technology companies, to get them to invest in Britain and create jobs here. All business meetings were properly reported.” Whetstone’s lawyers said the dinner was arranged at Osborne’s request and that she “never sought to exploit or improperly exploit personal relationships with UK politicians and/or former government ministers”. The leaked documents contain references to further under-the-radar meetings between Uber lobbyists and UK ministers. They include a series of conversations during a “No 10 visit” in July 2014 with Hancock, Javid, then the culture secretary, and several advisers, according to a spreadsheet titled “Outreach grid” that recorded Uber’s contact with UK politicians and officials. Matt Hancock at the Conservative party conference in 2015. Photo: Jon Super/The Guardian The notes then record how Hancock met with Uber’s lobbying advisers, Westbourne Communications, again later this month. “Westbourne spoke to Matt Hancock about Uber over dinner,” the leaked document said. Hancock’s spokesman said the Downing Street meeting was No 10’s responsibility to declare, while the dinner was “political” and therefore not disclosed. Further encounters in the leaked data were also not shared with the public. GiT integration In January 2016, Uber lobbyists met current cabinet minister Patel, then employment secretary, and Gove, then justice secretary. In January 2015, a different Uber lobbyist had met Vaizey, then the culture minister, at an industry conference in Germany. A spokesman for Patel said: “For official meetings such as this, civil servants are present and responsible for making the appropriate recordings, in the usual way.” Spokesmen for Gove and Javid said the relevant agencies had no record of the meetings captured in the leaked data. Vaizey’s office said the contact with Uber was not disclosed to the public because “it was not a pre-planned meeting.” Uber said it was “nonsense” that any of its lobbying was done in secret.
