Andy Burnham has said the Government has failed to tackle the 'crisis' facing public services because of Rishi Sunak’s decision to wait to sack Nadhim Zahawi until the conclusion of an investigation into his tax affairs.
The Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester spoke out today after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak dismissed Zahawi as Tory party chairman as it was 'clear that there has been a serious breach of the Ministerial Code' in the row over his tax affairs.
The sacking comes after Mr Sunak ordered an investigation into Mr Zahawi by Sir Laurie Magnus, his independent adviser on ministers’ interests, following a report in The Guardian that the Tory chairman had paid a penalty as part of a dispute over his tax affairs.
In a letter to the Prime Minister following his sacking, Mr Zahawi did not explicitly mention the findings of the ethics inquiry into his tax affairs. But he tells Mr Sunak that he is concerned 'about the conduct from some of the fourth estate in recent weeks', a reference to the media.
He said: “It has been, after being blessed with my loving family, the privilege of my life to serve in successive governments and make what I believe to have been a tangible difference to the country I love.”
The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham told Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: “My first reaction, Sophy, is that the Government really must learn lessons from this situation.
“This conclusion has felt inevitable, hasn’t it, for a long time and yet it has been allowed to dominate pretty much most of January when there is probably the worst crisis in the National Health Service that I can remember, and also we’ve got collapsing public transport around the country.
“People can’t get to work and attention should’ve been on those issues, absolutely those issues because they’re critical for millions of people.”
He added: “They must learn lessons from this and get Government focus where it needs to be – on the very serious situation that there is out there for millions of people struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, ambulances queuing outside of hospitals, train timetables that are just non-existent in large parts of the country.
“Those are the things that the British public urgently need their Government to focus on.”
He added that Mr Sunak should temporarily remove deputy prime minister Dominic Raab from Government in the wake of the firing of Mr Zahawi.
The mayor said the Prime Minister should suspend Mr Raab – who reports suggest has had at least 24 complaints made against him – until an investigation into his conduct is complete.
Mr Burnham said: “I think he should deal with the Dominic Raab situation in the way that I’ve described. That isn’t going away.
“When ministers are subject to serious investigations like that, I think they should temporarily step aside from their roles. The Boris Johnson situation needs to be dealt with. Questions need clearing up but by failing to do that, they then dominate and that’s the issue that I’m raising here.”
He added: “I think we’re living in very strange times where the disconnect between what’s going on in Westminster and the rest of the country is getting bigger and bigger. People are getting more and more frustrated about it and the Government really needs to hear that and deal quickly with these things, put them to one side and get the focus back where it needs to be.
“I would love to know how much time has been taken up in Downing Street and Whitehall this week dealing with this situation. I bet they’ve taken more time on this than the other things I’ve mentioned.”
Last week, Mr Raab insisted he is “always mindful of the way I behave”.
“I’m confident I behaved professionally throughout, and of course the Government takes a zero-tolerance approach to bullying,” he told the BBC.
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