Rishi refers himself to sleaze watchdog
He takes extraordinary step in tax avoidance row after telling friends he WON’T quit (even though his family’s moved out of Downing St)
RISHI Sunak last night moved to clear his name – as he told friends he will not quit despite the furore over his family’s tax affairs.
In a surprise move, the Chancellor asked Boris Johnson to order an investigation to establish whether he had properly declared his family’s financial interests.
Mr Sunak, who has faced a backlash over revelations of his wife Akshata Murty’s non-dom status, said his ‘overriding concern’ was to retain public confidence in his actions.
The probe, which will be led by Lord Geidt, the Prime Minister’s sleaze-busting adviser on ministerial interests, will examine whether the Chancellor declared all the relevant information about his finances needed to avoid a potential conflict of interest.
Lord Geidt previously cleared Mr Johnson of wrongdoing over the £112,000 refurbishment of the Downing Street flat.
Last night Mr Sunak said he was confident he would be cleared and asked for Lord Geidt’s findings to be made public.
‘The family are finding the scrutiny difficult’
The move came as friends of the Chancellor told the Daily Mail that Mr Sunak is bruised by the row but determined it will not derail his political career.
‘Clearly it’s been very damaging to him and the family are finding the scrutiny difficult,’ a friend said. ‘But suggestions that he’s going to walk away are wide of the mark. If there was something worse to come out it would be unsustainable, but he doesn’t think there is.’
There was speculation about the Chancellor’s future at the weekend after removal vans were pictured being loaded with furniture from his Downing Street flat.
An aide said Mr Sunak’s wife and their daughters were temporarily relocating to their west London home in a ‘pre-planned’ move to leave them closer to their eldest daughter’s school.
The Chancellor is expected to continue to ‘live above the shop’ on days when he is working late.
The investigation comes after Mr Sunak ordered an ‘aggressive’ leak inquiry to identify the person responsible for releasing details of his wife’s financial affairs.
Senior officials will be grilled over the damaging leak to the Independent last week. Allies of the Chancellor believe the information, to which few people were privy, was leaked by a Labour-supporting Whitehall mole.
‘There’s going to be a full Cabinet Office and HM Treasury investigation... Divulging the tax status of a private individual is a criminal offence,’ a source said.
Policing minister Kit Malthouse yesterday acknowledged that the timing of the news about Miss Murty’s non-dom status was ‘not ideal’ in a week when the Chancellor’s controversial rise in national insurance was introduced for millions of working people and businesses.
Mr Malthouse told the BBC the Chancellor had been a ‘remarkable force for good’, but that Mr Sunak’s political future was of ‘secondary importance’ to what happened to the economy.
The Chancellor, a former hedge fund manager, was yesterday urged to reveal details of his own financial investments to remove suspicion of a conflict of interest.
He is one of several ministers to have put his investments in a socalled blind trust, which is managed by someone else on his behalf while he remains in government.
But critics say the system is unsatisfactory because ministers still have a good idea what investments they hold and could take decisions to benefit them. Former minister David Davis suggested investments should be listed ‘in the public domain’.
Mr Sunak also faces claims made by the Independent that his name appears as a beneficiary of tax haven trusts set up in the British Virgin isles and the Cayman Islands. The newspaper claimed to have seen documents ‘linked to Ms Murty, her family and companies linked to their businesses... In a number of them, Mr Sunak was listed as a beneficiary.’
A Treasury source said that neither Mr Sunak, his wife nor her family were aware of any trusts naming him as a beneficiary.
Mr Sunak is also facing questions about his decision to keep his US green card until October last year – more than 18 months after becoming Chancellor.
The decision meant he had to file American tax returns and was classed as a ‘permanent resident’ of the US, where he worked for a decade before entering politics.
The White House was challenged over the weekend about how the Chancellor had been allowed to maintain a status that is not available to people ‘employed by a foreign government’.
Indian-born Miss Murty has a £713million stake in the Bangalore-based IT giant Infosys, which was founded by her father.
Last week it emerged she applied to pay tax on a ‘remittance basis’, which allows non-doms to avoid UK tax on foreign earnings in return for a £30,000 annual fee.
On Friday Miss Murty announced she would start paying UK tax on her global earnings, although she will remain a non-dom.
But she faced fresh scrutiny yesterday after the Mail on Sunday revealed she has given more than £4million in interest-free loans to her British venture capital firm Catamaran Ventures UK.
A spokesman for Miss Murty said she had ‘followed the letter of the law’.
‘Leaked by Labour mole’
FOr many, the cost of living crisis is already having a devastating impact on their monthly pay packet.
Soaring energy costs, rising council tax bills, not to mention the Government’s illadvised hike in national insurance, have squeezed household budgets to the limit.
On top of that, rocketing inflation means the price of filling up the car and the weekly supermarket shop are rising by the day. The situation is only likely to get worse.
Things are so bleak for lower to middle income earners that respected money saving expert Martin Lewis suggests civil unrest may not be far off.
Inevitably, this crisis has already had a severe impact on the polls.
So it is doubly unfortunate for the Government that this all comes at a time when its own Chancellor – having just imposed a large tax rise – and his family stand accused of not paying their fair dues.
revelations about rishi Sunak’s wife’s non-domiciled tax status, as well as his mysterious US green card, may alone not be a resignation matter. But they reek of hypocrisy and double standards.
There is much to commend about this Chancellor. Thrust into the job at the start of the pandemic, he demonstrated a charm and poise rare among today’s politicians.
his introduction of the furlough scheme, saving millions from the breadline, was both shrewd and sensitive. But his errors of judgment over the past week have served to undo much of that excellent work.
Worst of all, he has presented Labour with an open goal. Come the next general election, Sir Keir Starmer will seek to convince voters the Government repeatedly behaves as though it is one rule for them and one rule for the rest of us.
Worryingly for Tories, Mr Sunak’s current predicament only strengthens his case.