George Osborne is to step aside from direct fundraising for the Tories in what amounts to an acknowledgement that he showed a lack of judgment in his dealings with Oleg Deripaska.

The Shadow Chancellor agreed to the reduction in his role after discussions with David Cameron, The Times has learnt. The Conservative leader is understood to have been dismayed to learn the full details of Mr Osborne’s contacts with the controversial Russian oligarch.

“Lessons have been learnt. From now on, George has decided that he will not be involved in discussions about individual donations from individual donors,” a source close to the Shadow Chancellor said yesterday.

Mr Osborne will, however, continue to attend fundraising events and does not rule out hosting dinners for wealthy donors, according to his aides. Until earlier this year donors were invited to join the Shadow Chancellor’s Club if they gave more than £25,000 a year. Donors were promised a meeting with Mr Osborne at least once a year.

That club was quietly renamed the Treasurer’s Club after Mr Osborne was the subject of a parliamentary standards investigation into the funding of his office. Among those revealed to be bankrolling the Shadow Chancellor was Lady Serena Rothschild, the mother of Nathaniel Rothschild whose letter to The Times last week revealed Mr Osborne’s contacts with the Russian oligarch. An aide said that he did not know whether access to Mr Osborne was still being offered as an inducement to donors.

William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: “We all learn something from a media storm. Certainly I have in the past, and George Osborne is a very brilliant colleague.”

Mr Hague said that all donations accepted by his party were within the law, “so far as we know”.

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