Cabinet Office attempt to keep Sunak’s finances in the dark ‘highly unusual’

After more than a year of asking the same simple question, this week we faced up against the Cabinet Office at a tribunal, where it made a last ditch effort to keep details of Rishi Sunak’s investments away from the regulator.

Like many ministers, while he was prime minister Sunak put his investments in a ‘blind trust’. This was managed by someone else, so that he didn’t know where his money was going in an attempt to prevent any conflicts of interest when he or his cabinet ministers made new policies.

But what if this blind trust investment fund was managed by a friend, an ex-colleague or even a Tory donor? There’s no way of telling if Sunak was really “blind” to these investments unless we know who was managing them.

All we want to find out is the name of the company managing his investments and the name of the fund. But the Cabinet Office under a Tory government – and now a new Labour government –  has been doggedly refusing to tell us, or the regulator, anything.

During the tribunal hearing, we heard the Cabinet Office’s reasoning for this, but it wasn’t convincing. 

Their lawyers argued that the release of this and other information about Sunak’s financial dealings during his time in Downing Street, is not in the public interest and could end up damaging ministers’ confidence in the financial declarations process.

The Cabinet Office’s lawyers also claimed that its independent adviser on ethics and other officials who had access to Sunak’s financial details were confident that there were no conflicts of interests.

But why should we take their word for it? The Cabinet Office’s witness even acknowledged in court that they don’t regularly do the kind of research that the regulator says would be needed to fully explore any potential conflicts.

This hearing only took place because we took this issue to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The regulator said the Cabinet Office had to share the information with them, so it could weigh up whether the details could be released to us and the wider public.

But the Cabinet Office appealed against this order, a move which the regulator’s lawyer told the hearing was “highly unusual”.

On the second day of the hearing, our lawyers explained why releasing this information would be in the public interest and laid out the arguments we have been making for a long time that show why blind trusts don’t actually work.

Indeed, the witness for the Cabinet Office told the hearing early on that blind trust arrangements are a “fallback position” and ministers are usually encouraged to give up their investments when they take office – because that’s the best way to avoid any conflicts of interest.

So what’s next? Well, we’re unlikely to get a judgment on this hearing until the new year. We’re obviously hoping that the judge orders the Cabinet Office to release the information to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

But even if the Cabinet Office loses this tribunal, there’s yet another step in this Kafkaesque process. The regulator would still need to make a separate judgment on whether it wants to pass the details on to us.

The outcome of this whole process is likely to have far-reaching consequences for transparency around the finances of the people running the country. And with so much at stake, we are adamant there’s an overwhelming case for full public disclosure.