The Charity Commission has referred claims that 32 UK charities funnelled £28m to illegal Israeli settlements to the police and HM Revenue & Customs.
The regulator escalated concerns raised in a formal complaint by Melanie Ward, the Labour MP for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy, last week.
Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Ward said her letter concerned 32 UK charities that have “funnelled some £28m to illegal Israeli settlements” in Palestine over the past five years.
According to reporting by The Guardian newspaper, Ward’s letter said that if Gift Aid was claimed against the donations in the usual way, it would mean taxpayers had subsidised illegal settlements by £5.6m.
Ward told MPs that the charities involved include the donor advised fund UK Toremet, which “currently has a live donation page to Artzenu”, an entity that is subject to new sanctions just announced by Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary.
The police were notified last year about allegations that UK Toremet funnelled approximately £5.7m from the Kasner Charitable Trust to the Bnei Akiva Yeshiva high school in Susya, in Israeli-occupied territory.
The Charity Commission said at the time that it was seeking renewed specialist advice from the Attorney General regarding the situation.
UK Toremet has not responded to requests for comment but at the time it said it had “never donated to any ‘settlement’”, saying grants had been made internationally to NGOs that were engaged in activities deemed charitable under English charity law, regulations and guidance.
It is not clear which charities have been included in the regulator’s new referral to the police, but a spokesperson for the commission said it had passed on details from Ward’s letter to law enforcement and HMRC.
A spokesperson for the regulator said: “Given the allegations related to breaches of international law and suggestions of improper use of Gift Aid, we have passed on the details provided in Melanie Ward’s letter to both the police and HMRC for them to consider, while we continue our own assessment of the matters raised.”
Cooper told MPs on Tuesday that she, alongside the culture secretary Lisa Nandy, had also written to the Charity Commission regarding UK charities with links to illegal Israeli settlements.
Following a subsequent meeting between the commission’s chief executive, David Holdsworth, and Hamish Falconer, the Middle East minister, the regulator agreed to work with the Foreign Office to produce guidance for the voluntary sector relating to these concerns.