Capital Economy, Business and Finance
The UK’s City minister, Tulip Siddiq, has resigned after becoming embroiled in a corruption scandal linked to the former leader of Bangladesh.
Siddiq, who had responsibility for the economic crime, money laundering and illicit finance brief, said she was “likely to be a distraction from the work of the Government”.
But her letter to Keir Starmer stressed that a lightning-fast probe by the ethics adviser Laurie Magnus found she had not breached the ministerial standards code.
Last month Siddiq, a niece of the deposed prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, was named in an investigation into claims her family embezzled nearly £4 billion from the country's infrastructure projects.
Bangladesh's anti-money laundering agency, the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit, has asked the country's banks for details of accounts and transactions linked to her.
It also emerged she lived in three properties given to her or her family by regime officials.
Siddiq has repeatedly said she had done nothing wrong. However on Monday the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition (UKACC) said she should stand back from her anti-corruption brief “regardless of the outcome” of Magnus’ probe, arguing that the “international credibility and reputation of the UK” is at stake.
Whether she jumped or was pushed, Siddiq’s departure had clearly been anticipated by Number 10, which announced her replacement immediately: Emma Reynolds moves up to become a Treasury minister, while new MP Torsten Bell takes on her vacated pensions minister role.
