The government has just appointed a former Labour MP to be the anti-corruption champion.
Baroness Margaret Hodge, who now sits in the Lords, will fill the position which has been vacant since June 2022.
Her predecessor, John Penrose, resigned over Boris Johnson’s role in the partygate scandal after a series of gatherings in Downing Street were found to have breached Covid lockdown rules.
Hodge “will work with parliament, the private sector and civil society to help drive delivery of the government’s priorities to clamp down on corruption and the organised criminals who benefit from it, helping to deliver safer streets and secure borders”, according to the Foreign Office.
Hodge has spent much of her career in the Commons campaigning against both domestic and international corruption.
News of her appointment comes as part of a new crackdown from foreign secretary David Lammy.
He has just announced up to £36m in support for the National Crime Agency’s international corruption unit over the next five years, and sanctions to hit the illicit gold trade.
Lammy said: “This government will make the UK a hostile environment for the corrupt and their ill-gotten gains as we put national security as a foundation of our Plan for Change and decade of national renewal.”
Hodge said: “After years of campaigning on the issue, I feel privileged and delighted to be able to work as the Government’s champion, combatting corruption and the illicit finance that flows from it, both at home and abroad.
“The time has now come to put an end to dither and delay. We must take determined and effective action and I look forward to playing my part in that work.”
Labour MP Joe Powell, chair of anti-corruption and responsible tax all party parliamentary group, said he “warmly welcomes” Hodge’s appointment today.
He added: “Oligarchs, kleptocrats, and those exploiting tax havens will sleep less easily tonight.
“This role is pivotal in the fight against corruption, and Margaret’s decades of tireless work exposing corruption and dirty money bring immense credibility to this effort.”
Neither Liz Truss nor Rishi Sunak appointed a new figure to replace Penrose after his dramatic resignation as the anti-corruption tsar more than two years ago.
In a scathing letter to Johnson, Penrose called on the then-PM to quit after the civil service’s partygate probe concluded that “senior leadership” at the top of government was to blame for the scandal.
The-then Tory MP said: “You have breached a fundamental principle of the ministerial code – a clear resigning matter.
“But your letter to your independent adviser on the ministerial code ignores this absolutely central, non-negotiable issue completely.”
He added: “As a result, I’m afraid it wouldn’t be honourable or right for me to remain as your anti-corruption champion after reaching this conclusion, nor for you to remain as prime minister either.”
Johnson resigned the following month.
