72 Facts About Keith Vaz

1.

Nigel Keith Anthony Standish Vaz was born on 26 November 1956 and is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament for Leicester East for 32 years, from 1987 to 2019.

2.

Keith Vaz was the British Parliament's longest-serving British Asian MP.

3.

Keith Vaz was appointed a member of the Privy Council in June 2006.

4.

Keith Vaz was born in the British crown colony of Aden, on 26 November 1956, to Anthony Xavier and Merlyn Verona Vaz.

5.

The Keith Vaz family hailed from Goa, now an Indian state, which accounts for his Goan-Portuguese surname.

6.

Keith Vaz is a distant relative of Saint Joseph Keith Vaz, a 17th-century missionary.

7.

Keith Vaz moved to England with his family in 1965, settling in Twickenham.

8.

Merlyn Keith Vaz moved to Leicester when her son was selected as prospective parliamentary candidate for the Leicester East constituency.

9.

Keith Vaz was elected to Leicester City Council as a Labour councillor and served on the council for 14 years.

10.

Keith Vaz graduated from Cambridge University with a BA first-class Honours degree, later promoted to MA.

11.

Keith Vaz was selected as the prospective Labour candidate for the Leicester East constituency in 1985.

12.

Keith Vaz remained in this role until his election to Parliament in 1987.

13.

Keith Vaz stood as the Labour candidate in the European Parliament election in 1984 for Surrey West, coming third.

14.

On 11 June 1987, Keith Vaz was elected as the Member of Parliament for Leicester East by defeating the sitting Tory MP Peter Bruinvels with a majority of 1,924.

15.

Keith Vaz was re-elected in 1992,1997,2001,2005,2010,2015 and 2017.

16.

Finally, between December 2002 and July 2007, Keith Vaz acted as a senior Labour Member of the Select Committee for Constitutional Affairs.

17.

In 1992, Keith Vaz was given the role of Shadow Junior Environment Minister with responsibility for planning and regeneration, his first frontbench role.

18.

Keith Vaz remained in this position until 1997, when he was given his first Government post as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Attorney General and Solicitor General.

19.

Keith Vaz then served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Lord Chancellor's Department between May and October 1999.

20.

Keith Vaz served in this position from October 1999 and June 2001.

21.

Keith Vaz held both of these positions since March 2007.

22.

Keith Vaz was appointed to a public bill committee, which held its first meeting on 15 November 2016, looking at the Criminal Finances Bill which aimed to tackle money laundering and corruption.

23.

Keith Vaz signed several early day motions sponsored by David Tredinnick MP supporting the continued funding of homoeopathy on the National Health Service.

24.

Keith Vaz supported Owen Smith in the 2016 Labour leadership election.

25.

In February 1990, after a bombing attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army against a British Army recruiting centre in Leicester, Keith Vaz publicly suggested that the Army might have planted the bomb.

26.

In February 2000, the Parliamentary standards watchdog Elizabeth Filkin began an investigation after allegations that Keith Vaz had accepted several thousand pounds from a solicitor, Sarosh Zaiwalla, which he had failed to declare.

27.

Keith Vaz was accused of blocking Filkin's investigation into the allegations.

28.

Keith Vaz said that Vaz had made inquiries about when a decision on their application for citizenship could be expected.

29.

Keith Vaz said via a Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman that he would be "fully prepared" to answer questions put to him by Sir Anthony Hammond, QC, who had been asked by the Prime Minister to carry out an inquiry into the affair.

30.

Keith Vaz had known the Hinduja brothers for some time; he had been present when the charitable Hinduja Foundation was set up in 1993, and delivered a speech in 1998 when the brothers invited Tony and Cherie Blair to a Diwali celebration.

31.

On 26 January 2001, Conservative MP John Redwood accused Prime Minister Tony Blair of prejudicing the independent inquiry into the Hinduja passport affair, after Blair declared that the FCO minister Keith Vaz had not done "anything wrong".

32.

Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, Keith Vaz's superior, urged him to answer fully allegations about his links with the Hinduja brothers.

33.

Keith Vaz had previously denied receiving money from the Hindujas, but said that he made no personal gain from the transaction in question.

34.

In June 2001, Keith Vaz said that he had made representations during the Hinduja brothers' applications for British citizenship while a backbench MP.

35.

Tony Blair admitted that Keith Vaz had "made representations" on behalf of other Asians.

36.

On 11 June 2001, Keith Vaz was dismissed from his post as Europe Minister, to be replaced by Peter Hain.

37.

The Prime Minister's office said that Keith Vaz had written to Tony Blair stating his wish to stand down for health reasons.

38.

In December 2001, Filkin cleared Keith Vaz of failing to register payments to his wife's law firm by the Hinduja brothers, but said that he had colluded with his wife to conceal the payments.

39.

Filkin's report said that the payments had been given to his wife for legal advice on immigration issues and concluded that Keith Vaz had gained no direct personal benefit, and that Commons rules did not require him to disclose payments made to his wife.

40.

Keith Vaz did criticise him for his secrecy, saying, "It is clear to me there has been deliberate collusion over many months between Mr Vaz and his wife to conceal this fact and to prevent me from obtaining accurate information about his possible financial relationship with the Hinduja family".

41.

In 2002, Keith Vaz was suspended from the House of Commons for one month after a Committee on Standards and Privileges inquiry found that he had made false allegations against Eileen Eggington, a former policewoman.

42.

Grestny's statement included allegations that Mr and Mrs Keith Vaz had employed an illegal immigrant as their nanny, and that they had been receiving gifts from Asian businessmen such as the Hinduja brothers.

43.

In late 2001, Keith Vaz complained to Leicestershire Police that his mother had been upset by a telephone call from "a woman named Mrs Egginton", who claimed to be a police officer.

44.

Keith Vaz wrote a letter of complaint to Filkin, but when she tried to make inquiries Keith Vaz accused her of interfering with a police inquiry and threatened to report her to the Speaker of the House of Commons.

45.

In 2001, it was revealed that Keith Vaz had assisted Anglo-Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi in his attempts to avoid extradition to France.

46.

Keith Vaz was a director of the British arm of Auchi's corporation, General Mediterranean Holdings, whose previous directors had included Lords Steel and Lamont, and Jacques Santer.

47.

Keith Vaz used his political influence on GMH's behalf; this included a party in the Park Lane Hilton to celebrate the 20th anniversary of GMH on 23 April 1999, where Lord Sainsbury presented Auchi with a painting of the House of Commons signed by Tony Blair, the Opposition leaders, and over 100 other leading British politicians.

48.

In May 1999, Keith Vaz resigned his post as a director after he was appointed a Minister.

49.

The spokesman stressed that Keith Vaz acted properly at all times and was often contacted by members of Britain's ethnic communities for help.

50.

Keith Vaz has criticised Bully, which had a pre-release screenshot showing three uniformed pupils fighting and kicking.

51.

In July 2007, Keith Vaz was elected as the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee.

52.

Select committee members are usually proposed by the Committee of Selection which, under the Standing Orders of the House, nominates members to select committees, but unusually Keith Vaz was the only nomination made by Harriet Harman, Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal.

53.

Keith Vaz was re-elected to the Committee's chairmanship in June 2015.

54.

Keith Vaz's backing for the 42-day terrorist detention without charge "was seen as crucial by the Government".

55.

Keith Vaz wrote to the Press Council complaining the story was inaccurate, that the letter had been obtained by subterfuge and that he had not been contacted before the story was published.

56.

The complaint was rejected as the article made it clear that the reports of an honour were just speculation which Keith Vaz had already publicly denied.

57.

In September 2008, Keith Vaz faced pressure to explain why he failed to declare an interest when he intervened in an official investigation into the business dealings of a close friend, solicitor Shahrokh Mireskandari, who has played a role in several racial discrimination cases against the Metropolitan Police, and who was representing Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur in his racial discrimination case against Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Ian Blair.

58.

Keith Vaz wrote a joint letter with fellow Labour MP Virendra Sharma to the authority's chief executive, Anthony Townsend, in February 2008 on official House of Commons stationery.

59.

Keith Vaz cited a complaint he had received from Mireskandari and alleged "discriminatory conduct" in its investigation into Dean and Dean.

60.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Vince Cable said that Keith Vaz should make a public statement to clear up his role in the affair.

61.

In September 2008, Keith Vaz came under pressure when it was revealed that he had sought the private views of Prime Minister Gordon Brown in connection with the Committee's independent report into government plans to extend the detention of terror suspects beyond 28 days.

62.

The Guardian reported that emails suggested that Keith Vaz had secretly contacted the Prime Minister about the committee's draft report and proposed a meeting because "we need to get his [Brown's] suggestions".

63.

Keith Vaz denied that he invited Brown to contribute, except as a witness to the committee.

64.

Keith Vaz was one of the members of the Commons who agreed to be on the all-party parliamentary group on Fiji proposed by Patrick Mercer MP, as part of his paid advocacy for lobbyists.

65.

Allegations about Keith Vaz were published by the British tabloid Sunday Mirror in early September 2016.

66.

Keith Vaz told the prostitutes that his name was Jim and that he was an industrial washing machine salesman.

67.

Keith Vaz resigned as chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee on 6 September 2016.

68.

The inquiry recommenced in March 2018 and, in October 2019, under the stewardship of the new Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Kathryn Stone, the inquiry recommended that Keith Vaz be suspended from Parliament for six months.

69.

Mr Keith Vaz's conduct has been disrespectful of the House's system of standards.

70.

Keith Vaz has not "co-operated at all stages" with the investigation process.

71.

On 10 November 2019 Keith Vaz said in a statement he was retiring from Parliament and would not be standing for re-election.

72.

Keith Vaz was elected chairman of the Leicester East constituency Labour Party in January 2020.