Zahawi given green light by anti-corruption watchdog to take up paid second job

The former chancellor’s appointment comes with conditions applied by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.

Nadhim Zahawi sought advice on taking up a paid directorship with the Adam Smith Institute (Stefan Rousseau/PA) (PA Wire)

Former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has been given the green light to take up a second job as a director of a centre-right think tank, on the condition that he refrains from lobbying ministers.

The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), the anti-corruption watchdog, said it did “not consider” Mr Zahawi’s employment by the Adam Smith Institute to raise “any particular proprietary concerns” under UK Government rules.

It said there was a “low risk” that the appointment could be perceived as a reward for decisions taken while he was in office, due to a lack of contractual relationship between the think tank and the departments Mr Zahawi, who was sacked from the Cabinet for breaching ministerial rules earlier this year, had been involved in running.

But committee chairman Lord Pickles, in an advisory published by Acoba, said there was a need to put in place mitigations due to the “inherent risks” associated with his time in office.

The risk that this appointment could reasonably be perceived as a reward for decisions or actions taken in office is low

Lord Pickles, Acoba chairman

The Conservative peer said there was a possibility for Mr Zahawi to draw on “privileged information” and use his contacts within Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s administration to the “unfair advantage” of his new employer, which works to promote free market economic ideas.

The restrictions imposed include banning the Tory MP from lobbying the Government or its associated bodies on behalf of the institute for two years from his last day in ministerial office.

Similarly, he must not undertake work for the think tank that involves providing advice on government contracts while in his new co-president/director role, which Mr Zahawi has declared will amount to four days of work per year.

He is also prohibited from drawing on government information that is not publicly available.

The Prime Minister sacked Mr Zahawi as Conservative Party chairman in January following an investigation into his tax affairs.

He was found to have breached the ministerial code after it emerged he had failed to declare that he had settled an estimated £4.7 million bill with HM Revenue and Customs while he was chancellor.

A former vaccines minister during the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Zahawi has also served as education secretary and was briefly head of the Treasury at the end of Boris Johnson’s time in Downing Street, serving between July and September last year.

Acoba’s advice on Mr Zahawi’s work outside Parliament comes a week after it ruled that Mr Johnson’s appointment as a Daily Mail columnist was a “clear breach” of ministerial rules.

Lord Pickles said the former prime minister had given only 30 minutes notice before his new newspaper work was made public.

Mr Johnson landed the job a day after he became the first former prime minister to be found to have lied to the Commons, in the publication of the damning report into his partygate denials.

Questions around lobbying and sleaze in Westminster have reared their head in recent years, along with the question of paid work for MPs outside Parliament.

Conservative former minister Owen Paterson resigned from the Commons in 2021 following a row over his lobbying for two companies that employed him as a consultant.