Nadhim Zahawi owed the tax man £5 million while he was chancellor, according to a government minister.
Chris Philp’s comments, in a radio interview, are the first time any government official has confirmed the size of the settlement the Tory party chairman reached with HMRC.
It is unclear how much of the total payment was the penalty Zahawi was given for failing to pay his taxes on time.
But appearing on Radio Four’s Today programme this morning, Philp took issue with the presenter, Mishal Husain, when asked about the scandal.
In a statement at the weekend, Zahawi said HMRC had agreed that his error had been “careless and not deliberate”.
Philp said: “I don’t know precisely what form that carelessness took – neither do you.”
Presenter Mishal Husain replied: “He paid a penalty for it, the settlement was in the region of £5 million.”
Philp then replied: “I think that was the amount of tax owed, wasn’t it?”
A Marks and Spencer boss and former Tory frontbencher has criticised the government’s inflammatory language on immigration, warning that “the public is thirsting for a more civil discourse”.
Archie Norman, chairman of the retailer and an MP between 1997 and 2005, said Conservatives during his time in the shadow cabinet under William Hague “would never have used that language”.
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Home secretary Suella Braverman claimed the UK was suffering an “invasion” over the numbers of migrants trying to reach the country.
It was followed on Friday by Home Office minister Chris Philp criticising the “cheek” of complaints from people arriving in the country “illegally” about processing centre conditions.
💥NEW: M&S Chairman Archie Norman slams Suella Braverman’s inflammatory language on immigration; he tells @cathynewman ‘the public is thirsting for a more civil discourse, a more grown-up discourse. When you’re going into crisis, you don’t want this partisanship.’ @TimesRadio
Appearing on Times Radio, Norman said under Hague “we would never have used that language, and the reason we didn’t is partly because it does mean that you trespass on very sensitive areas and you start appealing to people’s base emotions about race, about immigration, about people coming here from abroad”, and added: “I just think you have to be very careful.”
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He continued: “I think one of things we saw with the Liz Truss episode, and probably with the Queen’s funeral, is the public is thirsting for a more civil sort of discourse, a more grown-up discourse.
“When you’re going into crisis, you really don’t want this partisanship. You want people willing to come together as a nation, as nations, and across the party divide.”
“I mean, we had a convulsion…I’m not saying there’s no damage to that, but we’re back in a stable place now.”
The comments come amid overcrowding chaos at the Manston holding centre in Kent, where at one point as many as 4,000 people were being detained for weeks in a site intended to hold 1,600 for a matter of days.
Meanwhile, immigration minister Robert Jenrick was heckled by some residents while visiting Dover with local MP Natalie Elphicke, while a woman in the town said her teenage son had been beaten up after she spoke out in the media over what has been happening.
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Close to 40,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel so far this year. But no crossings have been recorded by the Ministry of Defence over the last three days.
The chief secretary to the Treasury has faced online ridicule after celebrating the rise in the pound – just before it repeatedly dropped to a 37-year low.
He tweeted: “Great to see sterling strengthening on the back of the new UK Growth Plan.”
But once the markets digested what amounted to tax cuts costing up to £45 billion annually, the currency went in reverse.
At its lowest point on Friday afternoon £1 could buy just 1.0896 US dollars – the worst exchange rate for Britons since 1985.
It was a drop of over 3%, and means the pound has lost more than 7% of its value against the dollar in just a month.
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Twitter was in unforgiving mood.
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Appearing on the BBC later, Philp said the markets will see that the government has a “credible and responsible” economic plan
He told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “I think when the chancellor sets out his medium-term fiscal plan, which includes getting debt to GDP falling, then I think markets and others will see that we have a credible and responsible plan.”.
He also insisted the government has a “plan” to drive up GDP by 1% on current forecasts every year.
“I have every confidence that the objective we set out, the extra 1%, will be delivered. We’re not hoping, we’ve got a plan to do it.”
Philp rejected the idea that the government has abandoned the cautious approach to the public finances taken by previous Tory administrations.
Using more than £70 billion of increased borrowing, Kwarteng on Friday set out a package which included abolishing the top rate of income tax for the highest earners.
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He cut stamp duty for homebuyers, and brought forward a cut to the basic rate of income tax, to 19p in the pound, a year early, to April, as part of tax cuts costing up to £45 billion annually.
Kwarteng told the Commons tax cuts are “central to solving the riddle of growth” as he confirmed plans to axe the cap on bankers’ bonuses while adding restrictions to the welfare system.
A minister today insisted the government is taking “sensible” measures to prevent major power cuts this winter.
Chris Philp said they were taking precautions amid reports that millions may face blackouts this winter because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Ministers have reportedly been warned of potential power cuts to as many as six million households this winter and the government is drawing up plans for rationed electricity if supply issues deteriorate.
Government modelling of a “reasonable” worst-case scenario predicts major gas shortages in winter if Russia cuts off more supplies to the EU, The Times reported.
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The paper reports that limits could be imposed on industrial use of gas, including on gas-fired power stations, causing electricity shortages.
Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Kwasi Kwarteng.
SOPA Images via Getty Images
As a result, six million homes could see their electricity rationed, primarily during morning and evening peaks, in curbs that may last more than a month.
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Worse modelling is reported for a scenario in which Russia cuts off all supplies to the EU.
Technology minister Philp told Times Radio: “I think what the business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng did last week was take some sensible precautionary measures to guard against a potential worst case scenario, he asked the three remaining coal fired power station operators to just keep their power stations available beyond the point of which they were due to be switched off.
“And I think he’s considering whether Hinkley B, the large nuclear power station might continue beyond its planned end of life as well.
“That’s a sensible precautionary measure, given that gas supply coming out of Russia, and Ukraine is for obvious reasons, so heavily disrupted and we do, of course, use quite a lot of gas to generate electricity.
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“Only a very small proportion of that, of course, comes from Russia, a lot of ours comes from Norway and in the form of liquefied natural gas.
“But of course, disruption to the global gas market will have a knock-on effect that may affect the gas that we consume domestically in the United Kingdom.
“So I think these are just sensible precautionary measures, just to guard against a potential worst case scenario.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Business said the UK had “no issues” with either gas or electricity supply and they were “fully prepared” for any scenario even those that are “extreme and very unlikely to pass”.
“Thanks to a massive £90 billion investment in renewable energy in the last decade, we have one of the most reliable and diverse energy systems in the world,” the spokesperson added, “and unlike Europe, we are not dependent on Russian energy imports.”
Threats to the security of supply have prompted Kwarteng to ask Britain’s coal-fired power stations to delay their planned closures.
The request for power stations in Drax, Ratcliffe and West Burton to stay open was made following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
They were due to close in September under plans to phase them out entirely by 2024 to reduce emissions.
