The Guardian picked up this morning on our blog on Baroness Hooper failing to mention her directorship at Barclays while defending tax havens in a Lord debate last week.
It’s taken a week to get hold of the baroness but we finally spoke at 11pm last night. Hooper explained why she had not mentioned that she was chair of the advisory committee for Barclays European Infrastructure Fund.
“I don’t think it had any relevance to the debate so…it is a declared interest in any event, that said I don’t think there is any problem with that,” she said.
The obvious relevance, of course, is that Barclays is fighting accusations that it has been running a vast tax avoidance unit. (Although I should emphasise the Baroness has nothing to do with it directly).
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey