A senior member of David Cameron’s frontbench team was last night forced to pull out of an appearance as the guest of honour at a reception for a corporate lobbying firm at the Tory conference.

Francis Maude, who recently issued a tough warning to lobbyists that they must clean up their act or face statutory legislation, had agreed to meet “clients and friends of APCO Worldwide” at a private suite in the Midland Hotel in Manchester on Tuesday.

A party spokesman said: “Francis Maude is not attending the APCO event at conference.” The effort to avoid a potential conflict of interest follows last week’s disclosure in The Times that dozens of Conservative parliamentary candidates have been working as lobbyists, with some admitting to having arranged meetings for clients with frontbenchers.

Despite claims by the Conservative leadership that it has been keeping lobbyists at arm’s length, commercial interests are still boasting about their ability to gain access to policymakers.

An invitation to the APCO event obtained by The Times said that the firm was “very pleased that this year we will be joined by Francis Maude MP”. Listing his titles as the Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office and Leader of the Conservative Party’s implementation team, it added: “His important brief includes responsibility for prioritising policy objectives across different departmental portfolios should the Conservatives be successful at the next election.”

APCO clients include British Airways, foreign governments, HBOS and Microsoft, as well as defence and oil firms. A spokesman said that it always arranged meetings for clients at party conferences where a “senior member of the respective party is invited to speak”.

Many of the private interests will be represented in Manchester next week where, according to one party insider, “wealth and power is stampeding in a way not seen since the collapse of the Berlin Wall”. Such comments reflect the unease felt by some senior members of the party at the bombardment from firms seeking to influence the next manifesto.

The party’s “Corporate Day” next week, when businesses pay £1,000 a head to meet George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, is a sell-out. All available space for exhibition stands at the Tory conference has also been bought with a record 118 exhibitors, compared with about 100 at the Labour conference last week.

The Tories have for the first time opened a shopping mall in the conference centre. There are 17 stores, including Marks & Spencer, Harvey Nichols, Carpetright, Blackwell, Asda, Tesco, Austin Reed, Crombie, and WHSmith. The mall is a first for any political party conference in Britain and reflects how the corporate sector is banking on a Tory victory next year.

The Tory conference also has 371 fringe meetings within the secure zone, all of which are sponsored and hosted by businesses such as Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Tesco, and pressure groups. Fringe meetings cost between £5,000 and £7,000 to host, which is split between the sponsors, to pay for hiring the venue and for food and drinks.

BAE Systems, the defence firm that is facing the threat of prosecution from the Serious Fraud Office over alleged bribery, is hosting one fringe event at the Tory conference. It also hosted one at the Labour conference.

The Tories have recruited the designer and entrepreneur Sir James Dyson to head a taskforce looking at how Britain can become Europe’s leading high-tech exporter. The party said that it would address Labour’s failure to encourage private sector investment in new technologies.

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