Rishi wife to benefit from big new deal
THE wife of Chancellor Rishi Sunak will cash in on a plan to outsource RollsRoyce jobs to India – while at the same time UK staff were axed.
Infosys – the Indian firm founded by Akshata Murty’s father, in which she owns a £690m stake – has a lucrative deal with the British engine giant to move work to Bengaluru.
The collaboration has coincided with 1,400 jobs being cut at Rolls-Royce’s Derby plant and 700 jobs slashed at the company’s plant in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire.
Rolls-Royce insists the jobs being transferred to Infosys were already based in India. But union leaders have complained for years about the firm offshoring highly skilled jobs to India while cutting capacity in Britain.
Ms Murty has been estimated, due to her nondomicile status, to have avoided £2.1m a year in UK tax, thanks to her 0.9% stake in Infosys.
Last week she said she will pay UK taxes on her overseas incomes, telling the BBC she did not want to be a “distraction” for her husband.
A spokesman for RollsRoyce insisted the Infosys work involved the transition of work that was being carried out in Bengaluru. He added that UK restructuring was completed with fewer than 100 compulsory redundancies.
Infosys did not respond to requests for comment.