Baroness Warsi News

The senior foreign minister Baroness Warsi has said she is concerned that political correctness could lead to statistics on the sexual abuse of children being distorted.

It follows concerns that today's report by the Children's Commissioner was not explicit enough in highlighting the ethnicity of perpetrators of sexual crimes.

She said: "If the victim takes us to a perpetrator who is white, black, brown, of whatever religion background, then we must investigate that fully".

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Tory Party chairman Baroness Warsi has issued an appeal to David Cameron to keep her in her post when he carries out his forthcoming Cabinet reshuffle.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, the first female Muslim Cabinet minister urged Mr Cameron let her carry on so that she could help the party attract a new generation of women, working class and ethnic minority voters.

If I genuinely had a choice, I would like to stay doing what I'm doing.

If you look at the demographics, at where we need to be at the next election, we need more people in the north voting for us, more of what they call here 'blue collar' workers and I call the white working class.

We need more people from urban areas voting for us, more people who are not white and more women.

I play that back and think, 'I'm a woman, I'm not white, I'm from an urban area, I'm from the North, I'm working class - I kind of fit the bill. All the groups that we're aiming for are groups that I'm familiar with."

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• Justine Greening

The report on Baroness Warsi finds she did breach the ministerial code but it "was a minor one" and "did not use her office for personal financial gain".

The Prime Minister accepts it was a minor breach of the ministerial code and calls Baroness Warsi "a great asset".

Responding to the report, Baroness Warsi said: "The allegations on this matter were untrue and unsubstantiated and I am pleased that Sir Alex Allan’s report has confirmed that."

Baroness Warsi still faces investigation by the Lords Commissioner on Standards on her expenses, so she's not totally in the clear yet.

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In a heated Prime Minister's Questions, Ed Miliband asked why David Cameron had called in Sir Alex to investigate Tory chairman Baroness Warsi but not Jeremy Hunt.

The Prime Minister said: "There is a very significant difference between the two cases.

"In the case of Baroness Warsi there hasn't been a judge-led inquiry with witnesses, taking evidence under oath, to get to all of the factual evidence behind her case.

"That is why I asked Sir Alex Allan to look at that case and establish some of the facts of that case."

But Mr Miliband said it was not the job of the Leveson Inquiry to investigate alleged breaches of the ministerial code.

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• Jeremy Hunt

Commenting on news that bus drivers in London have voted to take strike action over extra payments during the London Olympics.

Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party Baroness Warsi said:

Ed Miliband’s friend Len McCluskey [Unite General Secretary] is clearly hell-bent on ruining the Olympics.

Unite are Labour's biggest donor. Ed Miliband should put the national interest first and get them to call off this damaging and irresponsible strike

This, says the Conservative party, follows comments made by Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite, in February when he called for “civil disobedience” during the Games in order to bring his “grievances to the attention of as many people as possible”.

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• Unite

The Conservative Party Co-chairman Baroness Warsi is facing two separate investigations into potential breaches of ministerial conduct.

The first is by the House of Lords Standards Commissioner, who will look at allegations that she claimed £165.50 per night in accommodation expenses while living rent-free at the home of her friend, Tory official Naweed Khan.

She claims she made an "appropriate payment" to Mr Khan for the trouble of putting her up.

She is also facing a separate investigation by Sir Alex Allan, the Prime Minister's independent adviser on ministerial interests, into her failure to declare her business relationship with her friend Abid Hussain, who accompanied her on an official trip to Pakistan in July 2010.

Baroness Warsi has admitted in a letter to the Prime Minister that she did not "consider the significance of this relationship" at the time.

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Scotland Yard has decided that there are not grounds for a police investigation into allegations that Baroness Warsi claimed for accommodation expenses while staying at a friend's house rent-free.

[We have] determined that this is not a matter for the police. As such the matter has been referred back to the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards. The matter was considered in accordance with previously adopted procedures.

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• Baroness Warsi

The House of Lords Standards Commissioner has launched a formal investigation into Cabinet minister Baroness Warsi's expenses claims.

Former police chief Paul Kernaghan decided to investigate after being asked to look into the claims by Lady Warsi.

She is facing allegations that she claimed for accommodation expenses while staying at a friend's house rent-free.

Scotland Yard said it had decided not to investigate Lady Warsi's expenses and had passed the matter back to the House of Lords.

Labour had called for a criminal inquiry into the Tory peer's expenses.

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The Justice Secretary Ken Clarke the told BBC Radio4's PM programme it was right that senior politicians were put under "veryclose scrutiny" but he also said:

"There is a bit of a fashion at the moment, the media do tend to act as a bit of a pack and they are steadily working through my colleagues trying to find things to complain about.

Sayeeda (Warsi), I am astonished by some of the complaints against her. It really is pedantic, some of it."

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