Rishi Sunak is facing demands to disclose his finances after it emerged his wife is cashing in on Rolls-Royce jobs outsourced to India. The conservative leadership candidate’s partner Akshata Murty owns a £690million stake in Infosys – a firm which has done a deal with the British engine giant to move work to Bengaluru.
The Rolls-Royce plan to “transition a significant part of engineering centre capabilities” was extended in April after first being agreed two years ago. It coincided with 700 jobs being slashed at the firm’s plant in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire, as part of a 3000 staff cull across the UK.
Former chancellor Sunak announced he was running to be Conservative leader on Friday and is the bookies’ favourite to become the next Prime Minister. But Labour’s Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray has demanded full disclosure of his finances following the revelations. He said: “Sunak has been complicit in the Johnson debacle and he should be utterly ashamed.
“The loss of skilled Rolls-Royce jobs was a devastating blow to Scotland’s economy and the then-chancellor ignored calls for greater support for the industry. For someone now hoping to be Prime Minister, we need full disclosure about all his financial arrangements given the ongoing questions being asked.
“But ultimately, we don’t need to change the Tory at the top – we need a proper change of government, with a fresh start for Britain under Labour.” Sunak has faced criticism over his wife’s non-domiciled tax status and his own police fine for attending a lockdown-busting party at Downing Street.
Rolls-Royce – one of the jewels in the crown of British industry – has been steadily building its presence in India over the last decade. In 2015, the firm announced it would employ 500 engineers there while cutting jobs in Derby.
Details of 3000 UK job losses were announced months before the Infosys partnership was made public, with Rolls-Royce blaming the pandemic for a downturn in the aerospace industry. Infosys was founded by Murty’s billionaire father, Narayana, 75.
The 42-year-old has come under scrutiny for her tax status which will have allowed her to avoid a multi-million pound tax bills on her worldwide income. Infosys has also been criticised for failing to cut business ties with Russia quickly enough in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.
Rolls-Royce received hundreds of thousands of pounds from the chancellor’s department when it furloughed 4000 workers at the beginning of the pandemic – despite announcing massive job cuts soon afterwards. The engineering company recently shortlisted six sites for a factory that will build its proposed small nuclear reactors – one of which was in Sunak’s constituency of Richmond, north Yorkshire.
The firm insisted the jobs being transferred to Infosys were already based in India but union leaders have complained for years about the firm offshoring of highly skilled jobs to India while cutting capacity in Britain.
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the Unite union, which represents thousands of Rolls-Royce workers in the UK, said: “You couldn’t make it up – the Conservative Government, should be fighting to protect highly skilled aviation jobs like those at Rolls-Royce and protecting the tax revenues these jobs generate. Instead, it appears the Sunaks are profiting from the outsourcing of Rolls-Royce jobs and work.”
Sunak has furiously defended his wife’s tax affairs and called reports about her non-dom status “unpleasant smears”. She was estimated to have avoided £2.1million a year in UK tax thanks to her 0.9 per cent stake in Infosys.
Sunak resigned from the Government following a major row last weekend with Boris Johnson over how and when to cut tax, it has emerged. He declared his bid to replace the PM with a slick campaign video and helped to trigger a landslide of resignations when he stepped down on Tuesday evening, just minutes after Health Secretary Sajid Javid.
Carrie talked Johnson into accepting leadership was over
It was Carrie Johnson who tipped husband Boris over from defiance into docile acceptance of his fate. And Johnson’s dad, Stanley, said his son will now console himself over his lost job by turning to painting.
When the PM gathered aides around a vegetarian takeaway of lentil curry and naan bread at 8pm on Wednesday to rebuild his shattered Government, he was still determined to cling on. But as the meeting broke up at 11pm, Johnson went to the flat above No11 he shares with wife Carrie and their children Wilfred, two, and Romy, seven months.
An insider said: “Boris talked through his predicament with Carrie, who has an astute political brain. She told him she thought the game was up but they agreed to sleep on it.”
A Whitehall source said: “The PM had been angry all day. He kept going on about his personal mandate like a broken record.” Johnson awoke on Thursday and by 6.30am his mind was made up and he began working on his resignation speech.
In the next two hours, more ministers and aides quit and as the total reached 59, Johnson knew what he had to do. And yesterday, the Nightmare on Downing Street began to descend into farce. Johnson’s ex-girlfriend Petronella Wyatt tweeted that No10 sources had told her the PM was about to join the Tory leadership contest. No10 said: “Not true.”
And we can reveal Johnson has taken his revenge on Michael Gove for sabotaging his 2016 leadership bid by making the sacked Housing Secretary homeless. The PM has always resented Gove for rubbishing his bid to replace David Cameron which forced him out of the race Theresa May went on to win.
The man in charge of levelling up infuriated the PM on Wednesday by telling the PM to quit and giving him an ultimatum of 9pm to do so. At 8.58pm, Johnson called Gove and told the Housing Secretary to eff off and fired him.
That not only cost Gove his extra ministerial salary of £67,505 a year leaving him his MP’s pay of £84,144, but also his £25million grace and favour apartment in Westminster ’s Carlton Gardens near Buckingham Palace.
A friend of Gove confirmed: “Yes, he will now need to find somewhere else to live.”
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