LONDON- Former British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday that a text message he sent last year to the finance ministry's top civil servant, which appeared to show advance knowledge of a Bank of England rate cut, was a spelling mistake.

On March 6 last year Cameron sent the Treasury's Permanent Secretary Tom Scholar a text that included the line: "Never quite understood how rate cuts help a pandemic."

Five days later, the BoE cut rates in an unscheduled emergency move at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I've been rather baffled by this text message because obviously rate cuts are a very appropriate thing to do at a time of difficulty," Cameron told lawmakers from parliament's Treasury Committee on Thursday.

"I think I'm a victim of spellcheck here - I think it was about a VAT cut... I think I was responding to something that was in the news."

(Reporting by Andy Bruce and William James; editing by Michael Holden) ((andy.bruce@thomsonreuters.com; +442075423484; Reuters Messaging: andy.bruce.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))