Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been criticised after it emerged he could be splashing out up to £13,000 a year to heat his new swimming pool. That is over six times the average energy bill for a family home.
Mr Sunak, 41, has been building a pool, gym and tennis courts at his £1.5million manor in his Richmond, North Yorkshire, constituency. He has been sitting as an MP there since 2015, taking over from previous incumbent William Hague.
The huge rise in the energy price cap for consumers this month has also hit Mr Sunak. He now faces an increase of £3,500 a year to heat up the pool, reports The Mirror
Some of his constituents in the main square in Richmond reacted angrily to the revelation about his pool. One trader, who was packing away his stall, shouted: “That’s disgraceful, they should fill it up with mud.”
Pauline Porter, 69 was even less impressed. The retired shopworker said: “It is disgusting, especially in these times, they have no idea how normal people live, they just don’t care.”
Her husband Leslie, 69, agreed. The retired steelworker added: “Some people are having to choose between heating and eating, it’s obscene.”
Receptionist Hayley Hadden, 31, said: “He is a millionaire many times over. It looks like he is rubbing our noses in it.”
The uproar comes after a torrid few weeks for Mr Sunak. The multi-millionaire ex-banker was heavily criticised for still having a US green card giving him the right to work in the States, while he also had to defend his wife Akshata Murthy, the daughter of an Indian billionaire and one of Britain’s wealthiest women, for not paying UK tax.
When told about the pool, York Labour MP Rachael Maskell said: “Could a Tory Chancellor be any more out of touch if they tried? He may have now given up his US green card, but as far as most people are concerned, Rishi Sunak is living on another planet.”
Mr Sunak and his wife bought their gated Grade II-listed manor near Northallerton for £1.5m in 2015. Last year, the couple applied for a new stone building on a paddock to house a gym, a 12-metre by five-metre swimming pool, four showers, plus utilities and storage rooms.
According to industry figures, Mr Sunak’s new pool would require 116KW of electricity to maintain a 25C temperature each day. If he heats the pool every day with electricity from the mains, at a cost of 28p per KWh, that amounts to £12,959.09 over a year.
British Gas says the average annual energy bill for a three-bedroom house under the new price cap is £1,970.57 – less than a sixth of the cost of heating Mr Sunak’s pool. He could reduce the burden of warming the pool by using a heat pump, which could cost more than £7,000 to install, but heat the water without mains electricity.
The dad of two frequently spends time relaxing at his Yorkshire bolthole when the Commons is not sitting. It is said he regularly hosts “Sunak suppers” for neighbours, serving roast venison and red wine. Richmond constituent Margaret Rutter, 87, said Mr Sunak had earned his money and could spend it how he liked and added: “If he can afford it then it’s fine by me.”
But waitress Ashley Blakey, 35, a single mother of two girls who lives in Darlington – where the Treasury will be moving some of its offices this spring – was not happy. She said: “It really annoys me, the fact that he has disposable income of £13,000 to simply heat his pool when there are single parents, pensioners and working families who will freeze next winter.”
A spokesperson for Mr Sunak declined to comment. His wife has agreed to pay UK tax on her overseas earnings.
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