Keith Vaz under scanner over £500,000 worth bank accounts

The investigation found that over a six-year period, almost 500,000 pounds were apparently deposited in the MP’s accounts, in addition to his salary between 1997 and 2001. According to the Telegraph, the source of the funds has not been declared publicly and the evidence gathered by police may contradict assurances given by Vaz during an investigation into his finances between 2000 and 2001 carried out by parliament. Vaz has, however, denied any wrongdoing and claims that any money passing through his bank accounts came from property dealings. The Metropolitan Police is facing calls to hand evidence it collected to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, who can re-open an inquiry into allegations first made a decade ago.

Vaz is chairman of the home affairs select committee, charged with holding the police and Whitehall to account. Whitehall sources claimed that he had not been vetted for the role, unlike holders of other senior offices, and a Conservative MP called for him to step down while the matter was clarified. The Daily Telegraph has seen a police document in which detectives claim to have established that £28,959 in cash was paid into an HSBC account held by Vaz during a single year. The MP and his wife also held a series of other accounts at different banks that were also examined by police. During the period under investigation, Vaz made no formal disclosures in the parliamentary register of interests of any outside sources of income, the report added.