Rishi Sunak says he acted ‘decisively’ in sacking Nadhim Zahawi following tax affairs row

Rishi Sunak has said he acted “decisively” in sacking Nadhim Zahawi as chairman of the Conservative Party yesterday following a row over his tax affairs.

Speaking in Country Durham at the launch of his government’s emergency care plan, the prime minister defended his handling of situation and stressed his commitment to “integrity” and the need to follow proper processes.

“What I have done is follow a process, which is the right process,” he said.

“Integrity is really important to me – all of you guys want to see that government is run properly, that it is run with integrity and there’s accountability when people don’t behave in the way that they should or if something doesn’t go right, and that’s what we’ve done.”

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Mr Sunak also promised he would “take whatever steps are necessary to restore the integrity back into politics”.

“The things that happened before I was prime minister, I can’t do anything about,” the prime minister said.

“What I think you can hold me to account for is how I deal with the things that arise on my watch.

“And as you’ve seen, you know, when it came to Nadhim Zahawi, I asked the independent adviser to look at it straight away, acted on his findings straightaway.

“That should give you some confidence that these things matter to me, and that I will take whatever steps are necessary to restore the integrity back into politics, and you can have confidence that the process works.”

Yesterday, Mr Zahawi was sacked as Tory party chairman after an ethics inquiry into the handling of his tax affairs found a “serious breach” of the ministerial code.

Mr Sunak had resisted earlier calls from opposition parties to fire Mr Zahawi following reports that he had paid a penalty as part of an estimated £4.8m settlement dispute with HMRC.

But following the conclusion of an inquiry into the matter by his new ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus – which found that Mr Zahawi had “shown insufficient regard for the general principles of the ministerial code” – Mr Sunak swiftly removed the former Tory chairman from his post.

Critics of Mr Sunak have said he should have acted sooner in dismissing Mr Zahawi.

But the prime minister said it was on the basis of the facts contained in Sir Laurie’s report released on Sunday morning that he was “able to make a very quick decision that it was no longer appropriate for Nadhim Zahawi to continue in government”.