Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox
Get our free View from Westminster email
Get our free View from Westminster email
Sir Keir Starmer is standing by his Treasury minister amid a standards watchdog probe into her links with the deposed former prime minister of Bangladeshi.
The prime minister has “full confidence” in Tulip Siddiq, who on Monday referred herself to ethics advisor Sir Laurie Magnus amid questions over her aunt Sheikh Hasina, who was removed from power after protests against her rule last year.
His spokesman repeated Sir Keir’s insistence that he is backing Ms Siddiq, whose job includes the responsibility for tackling financial crime, insisting that it is “now for the independent advisor to establish the facts” about her case.
“She has referred herself to the independent advisor to establish the facts of this case. She denies any wrongdoing,” Sir Keir’s official spokesman said. “He has full confidence in her, but she has decided to take the decision to refer herself,” he added.
Questions have been swirling around Ms Siddiq since she was named in a probe launched by the new Bangladeshi government’s anti-corruption commission. She is alleged to have helped her aunt siphon off £5.2bn intended to be used building eight large-scale projects including a nuclear power plant.
Ms Siddiq referred herself to the watchdog after it emerged she was given a central London flat by a person connected with Ms Hasina’s Awami League party, and that she lived in a property in Hampstead, north London, that was given to her sister for free by an ally of her aunt’s regime.
The Sunday Times revealed that she had lived in the Hampstead property given to her then-teenage sister Azmina in 2009 by Moin Ghani, a Bangladeshi lawyer who has represented Ms Hasina’s government and has been pictured with Ms Hasina.
Ms Siddiq is also renting a £2.1m home in East Finchley owned by an executive member of the UK wing of Ms Hasina’s Awami League.
Ms Hasina, Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister, is now in India after being ousted in August following weeks of violent anti-government protests.
She has been accused by the new Bangladeshi administration of corruption, as well as “massacres, killings and crimes against humanity” including the deaths of at least 800 protesters. Ms Siddiq is one of several family members alleged to have benefited from the corruption – but denies wrongdoing.
Speaking on Monday, Sir Keir confirmed she had referred herself to the standards advisor, who investigates potential breaches of the ministerial code and can advise the PM on sanctions for those in breach.
The PM said: “Tulip Siddiq has acted entirely properly by referring herself to the independent adviser, as she has now done.
“That is why we brought in the new code, to allow ministers to ask the adviser to establish the facts.
“Yes, I have confidence in her and that is the process that will now be happening.”
Bangladesh’s anti-corruption commission has launched a probe into Ms Siddiq, her UK-based mother Sheikh Rehana Siddiq, and her aunt Ms Hasina, who ruled the country for more than 15 years.
The nuclear plant at the centre of the probe was built by Russian state-backed firm Rosatom, while the deal was signed in the Kremlin a decade ago in a ceremony attended by Ms Siddiq, her aunt and Vladimir Putin.
The Conservatives have said it is “high time for Tulip Siddiq to explain the source of her wealth, and whether any of it comes from the proceeds of her aunt’s alleged corrupt dealings”.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp called for Sir Keir to suspend her from her anti-corruption brief until she has answered any outstanding questions about her aunt’s regime.
+ There are no comments
Add yours