Sajid Javid used an offshore trust while working as an MP in the heart of the Treasury – but did not declare it in the register of members’ interests, The Independent can reveal.
As the then chancellor George Osborne’s parliamentary private secretary (PPS) in 2011, Mr Javid – now health secretary – played a key role in selling the Coalition government’s austerity policies to MPs.
But at the same time, Mr Javid was using a trust, understood to have been located in a tax haven, to cut his personal tax burden. He also served in the Treasury while the government launched a consultation on policies covering non-doms and overseas trusts in December 2011.
Earlier this month, Mr Javid admitted he had used non-dom status before entering politics and to having had an offshore trust, but it is only now that it has been revealed that he did not declare the trust as an MP and PPS.
The ministerial code states that while PPSs, who act as ministerial aides, are not technically members of the government “they must ensure that no conflict arises, or appears to arise, between their role as a parliamentary private secretary, and their private interests”.