The Liberal Democrats have written to the prime minister saying the former chancellor should lose the party whip if he refuses to quit as an MP.

Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper says Nadhim Zahawi refused to pay the taxes he owed and "refused to come clean".

"If he refuses to stand down as an MP, Sunak has no choice but to withdraw the Conservative whip", she tweeted, external.

She previously said the PM "dragged his feet for weeks over this scandal."

"He must now act swiftly if he's serious about restoring integrity to this sleaze-ridden Conservative government."

Tobias Ellwood, chair of the Defence Select Committee has told Sky News Zahawi had to be let go as chairman because it had become the dominating issue in politics.

He said “He clearly thought when it was labelled careless rather than deliberate that he could ride this through. The prime minister rightly had a review of this because it became this dominating issue, nobody could go into an interview studio and not be asked about it”

Ellwood also revealed his disappointment: “Nadhim has been one of my closest friends in parliament, I’m very saddened by what happened”.

Image source, PA Media

Nadhim Zahawi has been a senior Conservative politician for many years - but how much do you know about his back story?

• Zahawi was born in Iraq to a Kurdish family. They fled the country for the UK in the early years of Saddam Hussein's regime
• After studying chemical engineering at University College London, he went into business and in 2000 co-founded polling company YouGov
• He has represented the constituency of Stratford-on-Avon since 2010, and became well-known during the coronavirus pandemic as the minister who oversaw the first vaccine rollout - a project widely judged to have been a success
• In September 2021 he became the education secretary in a cabinet reshuffle
• And he replaced Rishi Sunak as chancellor, in July 2022, after Sunak resigned and called on Boris Johnson to stand down as PM. Just two days into the job, Zahawi joined those publicly urging Johnson to go
• Zahawi ran for the Tory leadership following Johnson’s downfall, but was eliminated early on
• He remained as chancellor for only nine weeks before Liz Truss’s eventual victory in the contest
• Truss gave him a number of junior ministerial roles. After she was ousted as PM amid economic turmoil, and replaced by Sunak, Zahawi was made party chairman in October 2022

Read more here.

More now from the former anti-corruption champion John Penrose, who was also asked why Zahawi is retaining the Conservative whip.

“He’s been sacked from the cabinet and paid a whopping great big fine to the tax man, he says. "Normally the Conservative whip is removed if someone has created a problem within Parliament, allegations of bullying for example.

“I don’t think having just paid an enormous fine and being sacked from the cabinet, we should find other things to heap on him at the moment. Those are two pretty huge penalties he has just been handed”.

Penrose adds, it’s sad Zahawi has ended up in this situation: “He is enormously talented and there is a lot of affection for him, but it was pretty cut and dried in the end".

On Radio 4's Today Programme, MP John Penrose is asked about what we can learn - now that Nadhim Zahawi has been sacked - about the ways that sets of principles govern public life.

The Tory MP says he was pleased that the prime minister reacted "strongly and fairly and I think quite quickly in dealing with this".

However, there is a need to upgrade the systems used to prevent more things like this happening, Penrose continues.

He says there are issues with transparency, problems with donors and questions about conflicts of interest - and these things could be tightened "quite easily".

Over on Radio 5 live Nicky Campbell is talking to his listeners about Nadhim Zahawi's sacking and is asking them about their views of the PM's handling of the situation.

Stay with us as we bring you details of what's being said.

Nadhim Zahawi's sacking has been met with relief by constituents in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Most people told the BBC they thought it was right PM Rishi Sunak had removed him, with one saying Mr Zahawi "had brought shame on the town".

Read more here

Whately is asked if Sunak regrets saying - at Prime Minister's Questions - that Zahawi had addressed the matter in full, when that turned out not to be the case.

The PMQs in question was on 18 January - three days before Zahawi released a statement which basically confirmed he had paid a penalty to HMRC.

Whately says she hasn't spoken to the PM about that, so she can't answer the question from Today's Mishal Husain. But she reminds listeners that Sunak did take the decision to remove him on Sunday.

Asked about Rishi Sunak's delay in starting an investigation into Nadhim Zahawi's conduct, which took some time following the appearance of various reports in the media, Whately insists that the PM followed a "fair process" in making sure the facts were set out.

She says there was no way the prime minister could "keep everybody happy".

Whately adds that the "he made sure that he did follow a fair process in making sure that the facts were set out," and reached a decision on the basis of Sir Laurie Magnus' report.

Image source, Reuters

On Radio 4's Today Programme, health minister Helen Whately is pressed about whether the PM is happy for Zahawi to stay as a Conservative MP despite not correcting the record on his tax affairs for some time.

Whately says the PM was not happy to have Zahawi continue as a member of his government.

Asked again about whether he should continue as a Tory MP, she says: "I'm not going to speculate about what will happen in the future" – and says there is nothing more she knows about the situation.

She says the PM is very clear he wants to have a government of accountability, integrity and professionalism.

More from health minister Helen Whately who's now on BBC Radio 4's Today programme and is asked about the sacking of Nadhim Zahawi.

Whately is questioned about whether she thinks Zahawi should still retain the Conservative whip.

That's because Zahawi was found to have made untrue claims by the independent ethics adviser by saying that any statements that HMRC were looking into his tax affairs were false.

Whately replies Zahawi's constituents will have an opportunity to vote for him again at the next election.

When pressed further on whether MPs should be allowed to make untrue statements, which are a breach of the ministerial code, she says it is a question for the chief whip.

Nadhim Zahawi is considering publishing his own formal response to the investigation that found he broke the ministerial code, the Times is reporting, external.

According to the paper, Zahawi believes he did nothing wrong, and is apparently furious about the investigation into his tax affairs that was led by Sir Laurie Magnus.

Magnus found that Zahawi had failed to declare conflicts of interests - specifically the fact that he was under investigation by HMRC in 2022 and that he later paid a penalty to HMRC when he was chancellor.

As the BBC's Nick Eardley is reporting, allies of Zahawi have raised concerns about the ethics probe, saying Zahawi only had one 30-minute meeting with Magnus.

Nick Eardley
Chief political correspondent

When Sir Laurie’s Magnus’s report dropped yesterday, there was little room for doubt in its conclusions.

It found seven breaches of the ministerial code – mostly relating to when Zahawi should have declared an investigation and subsequent penalty from HMRC.

The prime minister sacked Zahawi within two hours of receiving the report.

But opposition parties have questioned why Rishi Sunak didn’t act even sooner. Did he need a probe to decide he hadn’t been told the whole story by Zahawi? There were reports a week ago that Zahawi had paid a tax penalty, which No 10 said the PM hadn’t been aware of.

Number 10 has said it was important due process was followed and the facts laid out before a decision was made.

Some Tory MPs have questioned why an ethics probe wasn’t launched sooner by the government. But some have also told the BBC they are pleased Sunak acted quickly yesterday.

Meanwhile, allies of Zahawi are unhappy this morning,

They have queried why he only had one 30 minute opportunity to make his case to the govt ethics adviser.

They are also questioning whether Zahawi had been allowed to make sufficient representations.

But the main question this morning is whether Sunak acted quickly enough – not whether he acted too quickly.

Asked if Nadhim Zahawi should still be an MP, after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised to lead a government filled with "honesty and integrity" when he assumed the role, Whately says all MPs are "accountable" to their constituents.

She says the next general election is not too far away, and that voters will be able to make those decisions again at that time.

She adds that the prime minister "has done what he said he'd do" in removing Zahawi as Tory party chairman following the review of independent adviser Sir Laurie Magnus' report.

Health minister Whately says she has huge respect for Zahawi, having worked alongside him as a vaccine minister and seeing what he did during the vaccines rollout.

He helped us vaccinate millions of people against Covid, which made such a difference to us coming out of the pandemic, she says.

It's "very disappointing" about what has happened regarding his tax affairs, she says, but the PM did the right thing to remove him, following due process. Sunak wants to have a government that has integrity, is accountable and professional, she says.

Helen Whately, minister of state for social care, says Rishi Sunak acted promptly in removing Nadhim Zahawi from his role in government once the facts had been established.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast a short while ago, Whately says the PM asked the independent ethics adviser "to establish the facts of the case".

Once the conclusions were set out, he made his decision "very promptly" that Nadhim Zahawi needed to be removed from his job in government.

Image source, Reuters

Labour has written to the PM to ask when he found out HMRC was investigating Zahawi's tax affairs.

Anneliese Dodds, Labour's party chair, says there are very serious questions for Rishi Sunak to answer, speaking to Radio 4's Today Programme.

"What he [Sunak] knew about the investigation into Zahawi, the amount of money that he [had to pay] in unpaid tax and the penalty to HMRC?

"Why did he say in Parliament there weren't questions to be answered about Zahawi's tax affairs?"

Dodds says it was "clear for all to see for some time" that Zahawi had negotiated a settlement with HMRC and paid a penalty.

The facts were clear, she says, and Sunak didn't need an investigation – he "did need a backbone".

Nick Eardley
Chief political correspondent

Allies of Nadhim Zahawi have raised concerns about the ethics probe which saw him sacked as Tory chairman.

They say Zahawi only had one 30-minute meeting with Sir Laurie Magnus. They questioned whether due process had been followed and suggested Zahawi had not been allowed to make sufficient representations.

One ally suggested the process was truncated and questioned why it had happened much quicker than a probe into Deputy PM Dominic Raab.

A bit more from Labour's Shadow Secretary of Trade Nick Thomas-Symmonds now, who says Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's actions concerning the sacking of Nadhim Zahawi do not align with the promises Sunak made when he became prime minister.

Thomas-Symonds says the prime minister "promised accountability and integrity and his own policing of the ministerial code" when he became the country's leader.

But speaking on BBC Breakfast, Thomas-Symonds says the delay in declaring Zahawi's tax penalty, which was paid in September, raises further questions of the prime minister.

"Because that penalty was paid in September by Mr Zahawi, however it was not declared until this January some months later - the day after it had appeared in a national newspaper.

"What on earth was the prime minister doing in terms of policing the ministerial code of his government? There are still serious questions for the prime minister to answer about this."

Image source, Getty Images

Nick Thomas-Symonds, shadow secretary of trade for Labour, says there are still "serious questions" for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to answer over the sacking of Nadhim Zahawi as Tory party chairman.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Thomas-Symonds said almost two weeks ago at Prime Minister's Questions, Sunak said all questions about Zahawi's tax affairs had been answered, "when clearly they had not".

He says that after it was reported in July last year that Zahawi had made a ministerial declaration that he was under investigation by HMRC, and after then coming to a settlement with HMRC later that year in September, the prime minister then "appointed Zahawi to a very senior post in this cabinet".

"He must have known about the ministerial declaration of interest, what questions did he ask Zahawi then? When did the prime minister become aware that this penalty to HMRC had been paid?" Thomas-Symonds asks.