Senior Labour Party leader Keith Vaz, whose name recently figured in the >Lalit Modi saga , has been elected Chair of the prestigious Home Affairs Select Committee for the third time. The Speaker John Bercow announced the result of the elections, held by secret ballot to all of the 25 select committees of the Commons on Thursday.
Mr. Vaz received 412 votes against 192 won by fellow Labour MP Fiona MacTaggart, a victory that he will see as vindication of his innocence in the face of allegations of patronage and abuse-of-office when he was Chair in his previous term.
A Sunday Times investigation had said that in mid-2014 Mr. Vaz had used his influence as Chair of the Home select committee to bring pressure on Sarah Rapson, the head of >UK’s visa and immigration department , to give a resident visa to Lalit Modi, the founder of the Indian Premier League who was wanted by the Enforcement Directorate in India for several offences including money-laundering. In his own revelations to an Indian TV channel, Mr. Modi never denied his close links to Mr. Vaz, and to a clutch of powerful political figures in India. The Sunday Times based their story on leaked correspondence allegedly exchanged between Mr. Vaz and Mr. Modi.
The British Parliamentary Commissioner of Public Standards confirmed that she had indeed received a complaint against Mr. Vaz, but that she dismissed it for lack of evidence.
Although >Mr. Vaz could not be drawn into responding to the media allegations against him, he addressed the issue indirectly on his website on June 7, three days after the story broke. In a post he said that his email had been hacked and confidential information accessed. In another post, he provided both data and description of his work over the last year in resolving what he calls the “passport crisis” — a reference to the huge backlog of passport, visa and immigration cases in the Home office.
Mr. Vaz has won praise across the political spectrum for his work as Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. The Committee’s brief is wide: it scrutinises the work of the Home Office in dealing with areas such as counter-terrorism, policing, immigration and the justice and home affairs agenda of the European Union.
