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.
Mr Sunak told Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday that Mr Zahawi “has already addressed this matter in full and there’s nothing more that I can add”.
But pressed on whether Mr Sunak knew then that Mr Zahawi had paid a penalty to HMRC, the spokesman said: “That’s not my understanding.”
Mr Sunak ordered the probe into Mr Zahawi, who still attends cabinet, saying there were “clearly questions that need answering”.
The Tory party chair – who previously claimed reports of HMRC inquiries into his taxes were a “smear” – admitted on Saturday he had settled a dispute – reportedly to be an estimated £4.8m, including a 30 per cent penalty of around £1m.
In a statement on Saturday, Mr Zahawi said he was judged to have made a “careless” error in the allocation of shares but did not confirm the size of the settlement or whether he paid a fine. His spokesperson has not denied that a penalty was paid.
More to come…
