Vaccines minister defends family medical company

Kurdish-born minister says his wife’s companies had 'zero involvement' in government contracts

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said his family's companies were not involved in supplying government. Getty

UK vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi has defended his family’s setting up of a medical company during the Covid-19 pandemic saying it had “zero involvement” in supplying government health contracts.

Mr Zahawi said that the company, Warren Medical, was set up in June last year as part of a project to invest in a brain injury rehabilitation centre. He said the deal never went through and the company was in the process of being wound up.

The company, controlled by his wife Lana, was initially set up as Zahawi Warren before changing its name a day later. He said he told officials of its establishment.

Mr Zahawi said his wife ran many companies which all had “zero involvement in supplying anything into government”. Warrant Medical was listed in company registry documents as a property company.

Mr Zahawi, a British-Kurdish MP, resigned as a director of the firm he founded with his wife, Zahawi & Zahawi, when he became education minister in 2018.

The UK parliamentary register of members’ interests show that he owns property and 31 acres of land with stables run as a livery yard by the company. Mr Zahawi, who co-founded a prominent polling company, also owns flats in London that he leases.