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Labour called for Westminster’s sleaze buster to probe Chancellor Philip Hammond today after revelations he took a personal stake in a company just months before it won a share of a £560,000 Government grant.

Mr Hammond was Foreign Secretary when he took the 15% stake in Cambridgeshire-based food tech firm Hydramach in October 2015, according to records at Companies House.

Six months later Hydramach was one of eight companies which won the grant to develop ready meals from Innovate UK, a tech start-up quango run by the Department for Business.

Labour frontbencher Lou Haigh tweeted that it “ surely deserves more than usual slap on the wrist from Commissioner for Standards ”.

It was “unbelievable such conflicts exist at heart of government”, she added.

(Image: Leon Neal)

Former standards watchdog Sir Alistair Graham said Mr Hammond’s failure to make public his shareholding was “a serious failure” because “there is clearly a potential conflict of interest”.

The first instalment of the grant is due to be paid to the consortium on February 1.

Mr Hammond’s friends told the Telegraph Hydramach pulled out of the consortium after winning the contract.

The paper quoted a source saying Mr Hammond “didn’t know that the company had entered the assessment stage as part of this consortium until after the assessment phase was complete.

“Mr Hammond has no involvement in his capacity as Chancellor in the process of awarding Innovate UK grants”.

(Image: WPA Pool)

But former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life Sir Alistair said: “I am really surprised that someone of his seniority and experience has not seen fit to declare all of his shareholdings because it leaves him open to challenge of a potential conflict of interest.

“It certainly raises a very big question-mark.”

A spokesman for Mr Hammond said: “The shareholding has been fully declared to the director general for propriety and ethics at the Cabinet Office and the independent adviser on ministers’ interests [Alex Allan] who were content with the arrangements”.

He added: “Mr Hammond does not have any day-to-day involvement in the company.”

Details of the investment were made public in the register of ministerial interests published last month(DEC).

Theresa May’s spokeswoman said: “It’s been fully declared to the Cabinet Office (and) to the independent adviser on ministers’ interests, (Sir) Alex Allan, and they were content with the arrangements.”

Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Andrew Gwynne tonight wrote to Mr Hammond saying the revelations “raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest, and the practice of a senior Cabinet minister choosing to omit information about his financial interests”.

(Image: Andy Commins / Daily Mirror)

He added: “It is important that those at the most senior levels of government show, and are seen to show, the utmost transparency.

“The public deserve more than politicians who do the bare minimum in order to protect their own interests.”

Meanwhile the latest tranche of MPs’ expenses revealed millionaire Mr Hammond billed the taxpayer £90 to repair a smashed iPhone screen.

It is not known if it was for him or a staff member.