Rishi Sunak was flown to Leeds by Frank Hester for a private tour of the businessman’s offices on the day after the autumn statement last year, raising questions about the access afforded to the £10m donor bankrolling the Tories’ election campaign.
Sunak’s relationship with Hester is under the spotlight after a Guardian investigation revealed on Monday that the mega-donor made comments about Diane Abbott which have been widely condemned for being racist and misogynistic.
Sunak initially declined to comment on Hester’s 2019 remarks that looking at Diane Abbott makes you “want to hate all black women” and that the MP “should be shot”. But after an outcry, the prime minister’s spokesperson said the comments were “racist and wrong”.
It has now emerged that the prime minister visited Hester’s healthcare IT company in north-west Leeds on 23 November, with the £16,000 of travel costs by helicopter met by the businessman.
The trip was made roughly three weeks after Hester’s company, the Phoenix Partnership (TPP), gave a second £5m tranche to the Conservatives last November. Hester himself donated £5m in May of last year, while a further £5m is reportedly under discussion.
Sunak was pictured on a “political visit” in Farsley in north-west Leeds hammering jewellery at a workshop that morning, and No 10 has refused to “get into details” about whether Sunak met Hester after that.
However, sources have told the Guardian that Sunak and his entourage were at TPP’s offices in Horsforth in outer Leeds in the late afternoon that day, and those present were asked to keep the visit confidential. Sunak and his team are understood to have been there for about an hour.
Labour called for clarity on how many times Sunak has met Hester and whether any policy issues were discussed. Anneliese Dodds, chair of the Labour party, said: “Everyone can see that Frank Hester’s disgusting remarks were clearly racist and misogynistic. Rishi Sunak keeping these millions is inexcusable. There are serious questions to answer on Sunak’s close relationship with Hester.
“The prime minister must urgently confirm what was discussed, and whether Hester’s contract running approximately 60 million patient records in the UK or government AI policy was discussed. And Rishi Sunak needs to grow a backbone, pay this money back, cut ties and deal with the extreme views that appear to be tolerated in his party.”
The donor also attended an event at Lancaster House where Sunak discussed AI with the billionaire Elon Musk in November, and was present at two party fundraisers attended by Sunak in London last June and in February this year.
Hester, who has worked on artificial intelligence as part of his IT business, has previously said in an interview with the Telegraph he has had “some quite long conversations with Rishi about AI”.
Since Monday’s report about Hester’s Abbott comments, the prime minister has been facing calls, including some from within his own party, to hand back the £10m in donations.
After the report of his remarks, Hester released a statement saying he “accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbott in a private meeting several years ago, but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.
The statement said Hester abhorred racism, “not least because he experienced it as the child of Irish immigrants in the 1970s”.
The statement added: “He rang Diane Abbott twice today to try to apologise directly for the hurt he has caused her, and is deeply sorry for his remarks. He wishes to make it clear that he regards racism as a poison which has no place in public life.” With months to go before the next general election, a party spokesperson has previously said that Hester is the party’s “biggest ever donor”.
The businessman from West Yorkshire is the sole owner of TPP, which has been paid more than £400m by the NHS and other government bodies since 2016, primarily to look after 60m UK medical records. He has profited from £135m of contracts with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in four years.
Meanwhile, Labour will come under more pressure this week from some of the party’s MPs to return the whip to Abbott, and to conclude an 11-month inquiry into comments she made in a letter to the Observer last April.
In the letter, Abbott suggested that Jewish, Irish and all Traveller people are not subject to racism throughout their lives. Although Abbott apologised swiftly, the whip was withdrawn and an investigation was launched by the party that has yet to conclude and report its findings.
The Observer has been told that concerns over the length of time the investigation is taking have been raised several times at meetings of Labour’s National Executive Committee by members who believe it is being allowed to drag on too long. A growing number of Labour MPs have said they would like to see the whip returned to Abbott.
The issue is expected to be raised by numerous Labour MPs at a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party at Westminster on Monday. Claims by senior party figures that Abbott was offered but rejected a deal under which she would be given back the whip if she agreed to undertake antisemitism training, have been rejected by Abbott as untrue.
Abbott told the Observer: “The Labour party has repeatedly made two claims. One is that they are investigating my case, almost a year later. The other is that it is an independent process, without political interference.
“Both claims are clearly false when they are now saying a deal was on offer, which I am blocking. These latest claims are factually incorrect in every key respect. They are a cackhanded attempt to shift the blame for the mess of their own blatantly rigged process.”
Downing Street and TPP did not respond to requests for comment.
