Natural Resources Wales: Welsh ministers settle £16m tax bill

Irranca-Davies, the climate change secretary, said: “I have asked my officials to work with NRW to develop enhanced monitoring arrangements to provide assurance and confidence in the oversight and financial and risk management arrangements in place.

“I have also asked the chair of NRW to take a number of steps to further enhance capacity and capability within NRW.”

He said the investigation was into NRW’s “historic compliance with off-payroll working”.

A tax rule known as IR35 says off-payroll workers should pay broadly the same income tax and National Insurance as regular employees.

HMRC said it could not comment on specific cases.

The Conservatives said NRW, formed through a merger of quangos more than 10 years ago, should be broken up.

Shadow Rural Affairs Minister James Evans said: “What concerns me now is that the organisation may face a large tax bill that will require the Labour government to once again, whip out the taxpayer.s cheque book to bail them out.”