Nadhim Zahawi

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fired the Conservative Party chair Nadhim Zahawi from government after an investigation found he had been insufficiently ...

But he found that Mr Zahawi had failed to declare HMRC's probing of affairs, or acknowledge that they were a serious matter. Mr Zahawi did not correct the record until last week, when he said he had reached a settlement with the authorities. The Labour Party and some Tory MPs had said Mr Zahawi should have stood down earlier while Mr Sunak waited for the findings of Mr Magnus' investigation. He expressed concern at the conduct of some in the media in recent weeks and said he would support Mr Sunak's agenda as a backbench MP. [Mr Sunak said in a letter to Mr Zahawi](https://www.rte.ie/documents/news/2023/01/letter-from-the-prime-minister-to-the-rt-hon-nadhim-zahawi-29-january-2023.pdf). Mr Zahawi has said the tax body ruled he had been "careless" with his declarations but had not deliberately made an error to pay less tax.

UK prime minister acts after Whitehall probe finds 'a serious breach of the ministerial code.'

“It’s vital that we now get answers to what Rishi Sunak knew and when did he know it,” she added. In his reply to the prime minister, Zahawi — who served as U.K. An independent probe, ordered by Sunak and published Sunday morning, concluded Zahawi had not been sufficiently transparent about his private dealings with the tax authority when accepting a succession of senior ministerial roles.

Nadhim Zahawi has been sacked from government after an inquiry by Rishi Sunak's ethics adviser criticised how he handled his tax affairs. The prime minister ...

Mr Zahawi - who was vaccines minister at the time - told Sir Laurie he believed he was "merely being asked certain queries" rather than being investigated. August 2022: Mr Zahawi reaches an agreement with HMRC for failing to take "reasonable care". Again, Mr Zahawi does not update his declaration of interest form "Regardless of what happened with the tax, his behaviour... he tried to shut me up". April 2021: HMRC starts having interactions with Mr Zahawi, including a meeting with him and his advisers. Sir Laurie says Mr Zahawi should have understood this was "a serious matter" and included it in his declaration of interests He also praised Mr Zahawi's "willingness to assist with my inquiry" and said he appreciated the pressures of being a minister. Asked whether he should ever have been appointed, Mr Gove said his "understanding" was that there was "no information that was brought to the attention of the prime minister, either Rishi or indeed Liz Truss which would have led them to believe at the time it was inappropriate to have Nadhim on the team". He concluded that Mr Zahawi had shown "insufficient regard for the general principles of the ministerial code and the requirements in particular to be honest, open and an exemplary leader through his own behaviour". Sir Laurie was also critical of Mr Zahawi for describing new stories about his tax affairs as "smears" and failing to correct the record until January 2023. Setting out his findings in a letter to the prime minister, Sir Laurie criticised Mr Zahawi not only for failing to include the HMRC investigation in his register of interests until July 2022, but also for failing to update it once a settlement had been reached.

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has sacked Nadhim Zahawi as chair of the Conservative party after his ethics adviser concluded there had been “serious ...

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Former chancellor had agreed to pay millions to HM Revenue & Customs following a tax settlement.

He had reached a settlement with HMRC in August 2022, but it was not until January 20th this year that the details came to light, after the Guardian was told he had paid a penalty imposed by HMRC. “As a result, I have informed you of my decision to remove you from your position in His Majesty’s Government,” he said. By that stage the investigation had been ongoing for more than a year; however, Zahawi only updated his declaration on July 15th of last year.

Rishi Sunak has sacked Tory party chairman Nadhim Zahawi over "a serious breach of the ministerial code" following an investigation into his tax affai...

"That means when an allegation is put against someone, he doesn’t immediately think: ‘Right, I’m in political difficulty, let me deal with this in the way that the cynic might imagine is right. Asked on the Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme if Sunak should have carried out more checks before appointing Zahawi. One senior Tory said the row was “a gift for the Labour Party". "He has shown he is unfit to serve in Cabinet and unfit to serve the people of Stratford-on-Avon," she said. “That is something which people up and down this country have rightly valued. Magnus said that on the basis of the confidential information he had access to, he believed Zahawi “should have understood at the outset that they were under investigation by HMRC and that this was a serious matter”, and as a minister should have been raised with the permanent secretary in their department. “I consider that an individual subject to the HMRC process faced by Mr Zahawi should have understood that they were under investigation by HMRC and that this was a serious matter.” The ethics adviser wrote: “Zahawi has told me that at the time of this statement, he was under the impression that he was answering HMRC’s queries, but that he was not under investigation. He added: "I consider that Mr Zahawi, in holding the high privilege of being a Minister of the Crown, has shown insufficient regard for the General Principles of the Ministerial Code and the requirements in particular, under the seven Principles of Public Life, to be honest, open and an exemplary leader through his own behaviour.” Zahawi has repeatedly defended his position, and said the settlement included a penalty applied on the basis of “carelessness”, but had failed to speak publicly to address the situation. In response Zahawi told the PM he can be "assured of my support from the backbenches in the coming years", in a letter he posted on Twitter responding to his sacking, saying: “Your five priorities are the right priorities, and I will do whatever I can to help you deliver them." He added to the Conservative party chair, a former vaccines minister, that he should be “extremely proud" of his “wide-ranging achievements in government over the last five years”.

What was in the letters sent between the prime minister, the former chancellor and Sir Laurie Magnus.

Instead, he has faced days of damaging headlines about the multimillionaire cabinet minister avoiding paying tax – and pressure from angry Tory MPs who have ...

At a time when so many people are struggling to make ends meet, the spectacle of Zahawi, a former chancellor, avoiding paying millions of pounds of tax is particularly damaging for the government. But even they know that the window to win back public trust is narrowing. They have also been an unwelcome distraction for ministers trying to deal with big issues such as the NHS crisis and public sector strikes. The prime minister – who has now lost two cabinet ministers in his first 100 days in office – will want nothing more than to put the whole damaging affair behind him. There are few in the Tory party who think Raab will survive in cabinet, meaning yet more political authority lost for Sunak. When it came to it, the prime minister acted swiftly.

PM's judgment in question as Zahawi fails to apologise after inquiry finds breaches of ministerial code.

Zahawi finally updated his declaration of interest to include the outcome of the HMRC investigation on 16 January 2023. Magnus said the delay in correcting an “untrue public statement” was a breach of the ministerial code. In his first breach of the code, Zahawi did not declare the matter, later telling the ethics adviser he had failed to realise it was a formal investigation. But Magnus said he should realised it was an investigation and treated it as a “serious matter”. “As a result, I have informed you of my decision to remove you from your position,” he wrote. The ethics adviser, however, criticised him for “untrue” public statements over the HMRC investigation.

The MP was sacked as Conservative Party chairman earlier on Sunday after an inquiry by Mr Sunak's ethics adviser. It came after it emerged Mr Zahawi paid a ...

"I think he should have gone a week ago or whenever the story broke." "I think Sunak should have moved more quickly. "I think he doesn't lead by example. "He hasn't been honest and he's failed in that test of leadership and I think it brings shame on the town and shame on the country and shame on the party that he represents," he said. I think he's been forced into the position," she said. If he had gone at the beginning of this week he'd have gone with some grace," she said.

Nadhim Zahawi had faced damaging reports that he had settled an estimated £4.8m bill with HMRC while he was chancellor, including paying a penalty.

"Now that should have been in itself a red flag to the prime minister. Now, Labour have written to Rishi Sunak asking what he knew about the investigation and when. In a letter to Mr Sunak following his sacking - in which he made no apology for his actions - Mr Zahawi told the PM he can be "assured of my support from the backbenches in the coming years". Ms Whately said Mr Zahawi had "opportunities" to be "more transparent" about his tax affairs, adding: "The prime minister didn't know about the things that have come out." Informing Mr Zahawi of his decision to remove him from government, Mr Sunak wrote: "Following the completion of the independent adviser's investigation - the findings of which he has shared with us both - it is clear that there has been a serious breach of the Ministerial Code. [In a second letter written by the PM to Mr Zahawi](https://news.sky.com/story/in-full-prime-minister-rishi-sunaks-letter-sacking-nadhim-zahawi-12798212) following Sir Laurie's findings, Mr Sunak said it is "clear that there has been a serious breach of the ministerial code" and announced the removal of the Tory chairman from his ministerial position. The politician sacked over his tax affairs?](https://news.sky.com/story/who-is-nadhim-zahawi-the-child-refugee-turned-multi-millionaire-politician-facing-questions-about-his-taxes-12791994) [Rishi Sunak: From Zahawi and Raab to seatbelt gaffe - the U-turns and scandals of his first months as PM](https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunak-from-zahawi-and-raab-to-seatbelt-gaffe-the-u-turns-and-scandals-of-his-first-months-as-pm-12795816) In the correspondence to Mr Sunak released by Downing Street, Sir Laurie said his overall judgement was that the "omissions" by Mr Zahawi regarding his tax affairs "constitute a serious failure to meet the standards set out in the ministerial code". In a letter written by Sir Laurie to the PM on Sunday morning following the conclusion of the investigation, the ethics adviser said Mr Zahawi had "shown insufficient regard for the general principles of the ministerial code" and had not fulfilled the requirements of being an "honest, open and an exemplary leader". Asked whether he believes Mr Sunak has lied about what he knew of the matter, Mr Thomas-Symonds added: "How could the prime minister not have known about the fact of the investigation when Mr Zahawi declared it in July?" "We need to know precisely what Rishi Sunak knew about Zahawi's tax affairs and the HMRC investigation, why he was appointed to the cabinet in the first place, and when the prime minister will be transparent about his own tax return," she said. [Mr Zahawi's](https://news.sky.com/topic/nadhim-zahawi-9678) finances found a "serious breach" of the ministerial code and [Mr Sunak swiftly removed the Tory chairman from his position](https://news.sky.com/story/nadhim-zahawi-sacked-as-tory-chairman-over-tax-affairs-row-12793431).

Amid signs of pushback by Zahawi over his sacking, Helen Whately says PM did right thing in removing him from cabinet.

Those were opportunities when he could have been transparent and he wasn’t. “There are serious questions for Rishi Sunak to answer,” the Labour chair, Anneliese Dodds, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday. “As a result, I have informed you of my decision to remove you from your position,” he wrote. And it’s not that long again until there will be another general election in which voters will again make those decisions.” “What did he know about the investigation into Nadim Zahawi, the amount of money he had paid in unpaid tax and the penalty he had to pay? Asked if Sunak could have acted sooner, Whately defended the process.