Rishi Sunak said he didn’t know the former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi paid a penalty to settle his tax dispute with HMRC, Downing Street said today.
The prime minister’s official spokesman added that “additional facts” had been placed in the public domain over the weekend by Mr Zahawi.
Mr Sunak has ordered his ethics adviser to examine Mr Zahawi’s tax affairs as “clearly in this case there are questions that need answering”.
Mr Zahawi said he was confident he “acted properly throughout” and has resisted calls to stand down despite warnings from Tory MPs that his position is “untenable” and calls from Sir Keir Starmer for him to be sacked.
A source close to the former chancellor told PA that Mr Zahawi would stay in his role, while a senior Tory said he was “unlikely” to survive the row over a tax penalty from HMRC, estimated at around £5m.
Anneliese Dodds, Labour chair, said her Tory counterpart could help clear up the controversy by publishing his tax returns going back to 2018, the year a stake in YouGov was sold by a Gibraltar-registered trust linked to Mr Zahawi.
Rishi Sunak ‘didn’t know’ Nadhim Zahawi paid penalty to settle tax dispute
Rishi Sunak didn’t know last week that former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi had paid a penalty to settle his tax dispute, Downing Street has said.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said that “additional facts” had been placed in the public domain over the weekend by Mr Zahawi.
“As you heard from the prime minister this morning, he thinks it’s right because of this to ask his independent adviser to establish the facts,” he added.
Kate Devlin reports.
We’re pausing updates on the blog for tonight, thanks for following here.
My colleagues will be back with more coverage in the morning, and you can find our latest output on the row over Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs here.
Otherwise, keep scrolling to catch up on the day’s developments as we reported them.
Analysis | To sack Nadhim Zahawi or stand by him? Rishi Sunak’s first big test
Giving his analysis of the situation, our chief political commentator John Rentoul writes:
Rishi Sunak promised that his government would be different from Boris Johnson’s because it would adhere to the highest ethical standards. He also implied that it would be more competent, which might matter more to the voters.
The two things go together, and if the government becomes mired in sleaze, its reputation for competence in dealing with the cost of living, the NHS and small boats is likely to suffer too.
Hence the importance of the decision that now faces the prime minister: should he sack Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative Party chair? Or should he back him to be bitter end? Some prime ministers would have made the decision by now, but Sunak suffers by being the most inexperienced of recent holders of the top job.
Who is Sir Laurie Magnus, Rishi Sunak’s new ethics adviser?
Rishi Sunak‘s ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus will investigate Nadhim Zahawi’s tax settlement after the prime minister said there were “clearly questions that need answering”.
Mr Zahawi is the second MP to be investigated by the newly appointed Whitehall watchdog who was given the job in December, after the position was left vacant for six months following the resignation of Lord Geidt, who quit after a turbulent tenure under Boris Johnson.
But who is Sir Laurie, and what does his role involve? My colleague Eleanor Noyce takes a look:
Nadhim Zahawi’s controversies from tax dispute to heated stables
Nadhim Zahawi is in increasing political peril over his tax affairs after he admitted paying a settlement to the HMRC to end a dispute.
My colleague Joe Middleton takes a look at some of the occasions the Tory party chair has hit the headlines for the wrong reasons:
Voices | It takes a lot of care to be as ‘careless’ as Nadhim Zahawi
In his latest column, our political sketch writer Tom Peck says:
“One of the many edifying aspects of life writing about British politics from 2016 to the present day is the almost complete fusion of the words “shameless” and “shameful”. They sound like they should be opposites, but they can be used almost interchangeably.
“Politicians have always done shameful things, but when found out, quite often they resign; specifically because they may have done a shameful thing, but they are not shameless. At some point, in the recent past, something changed.
“Is Nadhim Zahawi shameful or shameless to be a) quietly ponying up £5m in unpaid tax at the same time as b) threatening to sue anyone who dare suggest anything untoward might have been going on? The answer is both.
“What I must say I didn’t expect, however, is for the same linguistic nuclear fusion to take place with careless and careful. They really are opposites, aren’t they? They can’t possibly mean the same thing?Well, let’s investigate.
Majority of voters say Zawahi should resign as Tory chair, finds polling firm he co-founded
A majority of voters believe Nadhim Zahawi should resign as Tory party chair, according to a new poll by YouGov, the company he co-founded 23 years ago.
The pollsters found that, of 2,387 UK adults, 51 per cent thought Mr Zahawi should resign from the role, including 41 per cent of Conservative voters.
By contrast, just 12 per cent thought he should remain in post, while 36 per cent of respondents were unsure.
Exclusive: Home Office accused of ‘interference’ in delayed review of Prevent counter-terror scheme
In other political news, The Independent can reveal that the Home Office has been accused of “interfering” with an independent review of the Prevent counter-terror scheme, after documents revealed numerous meetings and demands for changes to the report.
Reviewer William Shawcross handed his findings to the government last April but they have still not been published, four years after the probe was commissioned.
Our home affairs editor Lizzie Dearden reports that Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by campaigners show that Mr Shawcross and the review team met with former home secretary Priti Patel, other ministers and Home Office officials 13 times between February 2021 and August 2022 – including on five occasions after the report was drafted.
Documents obtained by Rights & Security International (RSI) also revealed emails from July discussing “legal issues” that the Home Office said needed to be resolved before the report was published. You can read our report in full here:
How The Independent revealed the probe into Zahawi’s tax affairs
The revelations of the probe into Nadhim Zawahi’s tax affairs were first revealed in The Independent last July – as the then-chancellor announced he was running in the leadership race to succeed Mr Johnson as prime minister.
Here is our report from last July:
HMRC has power to advise No 10 on appointments, says tax campaigner
Conservative party chairman Nadhim Zahawi is claimed to have been rejected for a knighthood over concerns about his tax affairs, according to a report in the Sun on Sunday.
Tax campaigner Richard Murphy, professor at Sheffield University Management School, told The Independent that HMRC has the power to share concerns about unresolved tax issues of individuals in line for honours or top political roles.
“They have the power to advise the security services, No 10, Cabinet Office about potential risks with appointments,” said Prof Murphy.
Our political correspondent Adam Forrest reports:
