Will tax return storm sink Andrea’s bid?

ANDREA Leadsom faced a growing row last night for refusing to release her tax return unless chosen as one of the final two MPs in the Conservative Party leadership shortlist.

The Energy Minister and former City banker yesterday agreed to publish her details when interviewed on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. But within hours her campaign said that she would do so only if chosen from the five leadership candidates to go to a final vote of Tory Party members.

Last night pressure grew on Mrs Leadsom to release the information immediately, after Justice Secretary Michael Gove released two years of his returns. They showed his only earnings were from his MP and ministerial salaries.

Home Secretary Theresa May is expected to release her returns imminently, and Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb within days.

Liam Fox, the final leadership candidate, is also refusing to publish his unless he is among the final two candidates. The row threatens to overshadow the formal launch of Mrs Leadsom’s campaign this morning.

There will be particular interest in her return because in 2014 it emerged she set up a trust to hold shares in her buy-to-let property firm, in a legal arrangement which could help reduce inheritance tax.

Yesterday a spokesman said she would publish her return after the end of the MP selection process – expected to conclude next week – but ‘before the end of the campaign in the country’, meaning that it could be weeks before documents are released.

That would mean MPs would not be able to see her tax return before they decide whether she should be one of two shortlisted contenders to be Tory leader.

The row could puncture the momentum around her campaign, which saw her move to be the second favourite, behind Mrs May, over the weekend. When asked by Andrew Marr whether she would publish her return, she appeared surprised. Initially she said that she would ‘have to think about it’, before conceding that she would.

But later, her spokesman then clarified she would do so only ‘if she’s in the final two’. He said she did not want to put other MPs in a ‘difficult position’. In 2014 it emerged that Mrs Leadsom had set up a trust to hold shares in her buy-to-let company for her and her husband Ben’s children.

The firm was created in 2003 to invest in more than £1 million of properties in Oxford and Surrey. In 2005, 24 per cent of the shares in the company, called Bandal, were transferred into trusts for her three children.

This is not illegal, but can potentially reduce inheritance tax liability. In 2004 the firm raised loans from a company based in Jersey, a tax haven.

Mrs Leadsom resigned her directorship of Bandal in 2014, shortly before she was appointed as a Treasury minister, and was replaced by her son. When the arrangements were first reported, her spokesman said it was a ‘normal corporate situation and all tax that is due is being paid’.

Mrs Leadsom also refused to rule out having Ukip leader Nigel Farage on her Brexit deal team. She has been endorsed by Arron Banks, the millionaire Ukip backer who funded the Leave.EU campaign group.

Yesterday there were claims Ukip members in Essex were ringing Tory MPs pretending to be members of the public, urging them to back Mrs Leadsom.

Mr Gove’s returns showed that in 2013-14 he earned £117,786 as an MP and education secretary, and paid £40,493 in tax. The following year his earnings dropped to £96,071 when he was demoted to chief whip. That year he paid tax of £27,929. A spokesman said: ‘Michael accepts that candidates for the job of prime minister should be transparent about their income and tax affairs.’

While Dr Fox’s campaign says it will not publish his return unless he makes the final two, the latest register of financial interests shows he has earned tens of thousands of pounds from speaking and writing fees.

‘Candidates should be transparent’