A senior Labour MP is requesting a formal review of the circumstances surrounding the CBE given to Camila Batmanghelidjh, the boss of scandal-hit charity Kids’ Company.
Kate Hoey said she will write to the Honours Forfeiture Committee, overseen by the Cabinet Office, asking it to investigate why Batmanghelidjh was given the award and whether she should be allowed to keep it.
The CBE was granted in the 2012 New Year Honours list “for services to children and young people”.
Despite receiving almost £50 million of government grants between 2001 and 2015, Kids’ Company closed a year ago having run out of money.
Inquiries by the National Audit Office (NAO) and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) raised troubling questions about how vast portions of this money was managed and spent.
Among the catalogue of examples of dubious spending, the charity helped to pay for the private education of Batmanghelidjh’s chauffeur’s children and used £200,000 of donations to rent a Grade II listed mansion in London whose swimming pool was reserved for the charity chief’s exclusive use.
It is also suspected of dodging tax and other financial peculiarities.
Hoey, a member of PACAC, said she was motivated to act by the current row over David Cameron’s resignation honours list.
She told Heat Street: “It has always seemed extraordinary that Camila Batmanghelidjh was set apart from the thousands of other charity workers in Britain and given this very high honour. Having established just what an appallingly run organisation Kids’ Company was, the current debate about some of David Cameron’s proposed honours gives the matter of Camila Batmanghelidjh’s honour extra relevance. After all, she was given her CBE while Cameron was prime minister.”
The origins of Batmanghelidjh’s CBE – the third highest honour available – are somewhat mysterious.
According to government records, she was initially put up for the award via the Department for Education in 2011.
It was then discovered that, contrary to what she had claimed on Companies House documents, she was not a British citizen but was in fact Belgian and Iranian.
Her nomination was therefore passed to the Foreign Office, which oversees honours for foreigners, and cleared by then-foreign secretary William Hague who passed her papers back to Cameron.
By December 2011 it was agreed Batmanghelidjh would receive the award.
Technically, this means Batmanghelidjh is an ‘honorary’ CBE. She was one of eight foreigners – and the only woman – to receive an honour at the time.
Another Labour MP and PACAC member, Paul Flynn, warned four years ago that David Cameron would use the honours system to reward those associated with his pet project, the Big Society – an idea which many believed Batmanghelidjh embodied – and that this would “abuse” the honours system.
On August 28, 2012 Flynn wrote on his blog: “David Cameron’s plans to use awards to shore up his controversial ‘Big Society’ policy, described as ‘aspirational waffle’ by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is less defensible. He also wishes to further reward philanthropists who fill funding gaps resulting from Government ‘Big Society’ cuts.
“These changes are likely to distort priorities in favour of those seeking prime ministerial approval, political advancement or philanthropists who make a public show of their generosity. David Cameron’s present use of honours to advance party political ends or policies of questionable value is novel in recent times. It will further politicise the honours system and the unpopularity of the ‘Big Society’ will plunge the honours into disrepute. This is a new abuse of the honours system.”
Honours can be taken away if the recipient is sentenced to a three month prison sentence for a criminal offence or if they are censured by a professional body directly relevant to their honour. Other reasons can be considered by the Honours Forfeiture Committee.
Cameron’s wife, Samantha, was a particular fan of Batmanghelidjh. In 2010 she told Vogue magazine that Batmanghelidjh was her “heroine”.
Kids’ Company is still being investigated by the Charity Commission. Its chairman of trustees is the £250,000-a-year BBC presenter Alan Yentob.