Liam Fox is to become chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, which scrutinizes Foreign Office ministers and officials on key policies. According to parliamentary records, he has been paid £20,000 from August 2021 to provide business and international policy advice to WorldPR, a company based in the tax haven of Panama City. The company’s clients, according to its website, have included “many government departments and agencies of Kazakhstan since 2004.” According to Human Rights Watch, freedom of speech in Kazakhstan is suppressed, trade unionists are harassed, and impunity for torture persists. WorldPR has partnered with government agencies in Azerbaijan, including the state oil company to “publicize its successes in many fields.” According to Amnesty International, persecution of government critics, gender-based violence, torture and other ill-treatment remain widespread across the country. Other WorldPR clients listed on the company’s website include Imran Khan, the ousted prime minister of Pakistan. the family of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet; Morgan Tsvangirai, the late opposition leader in Zimbabwe; and the former Libyan government to fight the prosecution of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of 270 counts of murder in connection with the Lockerbie bombings. A Fox spokesman said he had never worked for Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan or the other former clients, having only joined the company in 2021. He also questioned whether Panama was a tax haven, saying it was closely aligned with the OECD’s highest standards. There is no indication that Fox has broken any rules. But Sir Alistair Graham, former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, questioned whether Fox would be a suitable new chairman of the committee. “I would have serious doubts with his current statements as to whether he is a suitable person. If he offered to give up that particular paid job, then he can be judged on his genuine merit. But if in fact there are going to be potential conflicts of interest on the issues that were looked at by the select committee, there are questions about the true independence of his approach,” Graham said. Fox, who was defense secretary for one year until 2011 and international trade minister for three years until 2019, was nominated last month after the presidency was cleared by Tom Tugendhat, who accepted a post as security minister in the government of Liz Truss. He has significant Foreign Office experience, having served as a junior minister in the ministry under John Major and shadowing the post under Michael Howard. WorldPR is registered in Panama, where companies are not required to disclose the names of shareholders, nor the amounts of money they send or receive from abroad. Founder and Chairman, Patrick Robertson, founded the Bruges Group as an undergraduate. Fox is up against Iain Duncan Smith, the former leader of the Conservative party, and Alicia Kearns, a committee member and one of the 2019 MPs. Last year, Duncan Smith faced questions after the Guardian revealed he had proposed rules that directly benefited a company that paid him £25,000 a year. He chaired the task force on innovation, growth and regulatory reform in May 2021 when Boris Johnson asked him and two other MPs to find ways to cut EU red tape. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Only Tory MPs can be the next chairman of the foreign affairs committee, according to standing orders. Selected committee chairs receive an additional £15,000 in salary. Barring ministers from voting usually means the opposition chooses the most acceptable Tory or the one most likely to cause problems for the incumbent leadership. Stewart McDonald, the SNP MP and a member of the committee, said he would not support Fox for the role. “I wouldn’t support Liam Fox and I certainly wouldn’t advise my SNP colleagues to support him,” he said. “We are entering the autumn-winter period, in which the war in Ukraine enters a whole new dynamic. The immediate crisis on our doorstep needs a serious stable person to chair a really important committee.” A Fox spokesman said: “Campaigns and elections for the chairmanship of the foreign affairs committee have been suspended until at least the recess of the party conference, out of respect for the late Queen, so we believe there are stories about the election during the official mourning period is unpleasant. “There has been no complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards or any other authority. I am sure that if there was anything even remotely objectionable, then political opponents would not hesitate to make a complaint.”
