Sir Keir Starmer has defended Tulip Siddiq after the former Treasury minister resigned from government over an anti-corruption investigation into her wider family in Bangladesh. The prime minister told Kemi Badenoch in PMQs, "the former minister fully cooperated" with independent advisors looking into the matter. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Mr. Speaker, at a time of turmoil in the markets, the Prime Minister was distracted by the crisis
00:05around the former city minister. What does it tell us about his judgement that yesterday
00:11he said he was saddened that his close friend resigned? This was an anti-corruption minister
00:18under criminal investigation for corruption. Mohammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize winner advising
00:25Bangladesh, said London properties gifted to the former city minister may be proceeds
00:33of robbery. So, will the Prime Minister offer Bangladesh the full support of our national
00:39crime agency in ensuring that any properties bought with stolen funds are properly investigated?
00:45Prime Minister, the former city minister referred herself to the independent adviser. He found,
00:54as she well knows, there was no breach of the code. He knows that he found there was
01:01no wrongdoing, and the former minister fully co-operated. She referred herself a week ago
01:07Monday. I got the report yesterday, and she resigned yesterday afternoon. Compare that
01:14with the shadow Foreign Secretary, who breached the ministerial code. Her predecessor, Batu,
01:20ignored it. It was the adviser who then had to resign because he was not taken seriously,
01:27and she is now serving the Leader of the Opposition. What a contrast. Thank God the British public
01:33chucked them out.