Corruption

Senior Tory MPs accused of accepting money from former Soviet states

Allegations about financial links between two Conservative MPs and former Soviet states sympathetic to Vladimir Putin aired during a foreign affairs select committee hearing, prompted the chair to urge witnesses to stop repeating them, saying it was not a kangaroo court.

The claims, made under parliamentary privilege on Wednesday, concerned Liam Fox, the trade secretary, and John Whittingdale, the former culture secretary.

The Conservative chair, Tom Tugendhat, called for an inquiry into the role of corrupt Russian money in the British economy in the wake of the poisoning of the Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

Tugendhat has been leading the calls on Tory benches for the British government and prosecuting authorities to clamp down on Russian money laundering and, in particular, oligarchs close to Putin with major assets in the UK.