Former Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to close his commercial enterprises and donate its reserves, estimated to be around £8m, to his charity work. 

He made the announcement to close Tony Blair Associates and wind up the Firerush and Windrush structures yesterday. 

In an email to staff Blair said: “As I indicated last December at our annual all staff meeting, I want to expand our activities and bring everything under one roof.

“I also want now to concentrate the vast bulk of my time on the not-for-profit work which we do. De facto, this has been the case in the past two years but we need to reflect this change in the way we are structured.” 

He added that 80 per cent of his time would be spent on then charity work but will “retain a small number of personal consultancies for my income”. 

Blair currently has three charities. The largest is the Tony Blair Governance Institute, which had an income last year of £5.4m and employed 50 people. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation had an income of just under £3m, while his sports charity had an income of £200,000. 

The former Prime Minister’s involvement with his charities has previously been called into question, after a former employee of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation accused Blair of interfering in the charity’s affairs. 

The Charity Commission opened a compliance case and found no wrongdoing. 

Blair has not stated which charities will benefit from the money.