Sunak defends hustings comments that he removed money from ‘deprived’ areas
RISHI SUNAK was under fire last night after telling Conservative members that he had diverted government money from “deprived urban areas” to wealthier countryside towns.
A leaked video showed him saying that during his time in the Treasury he had overturned spending formulas inherited from Labour to make sure more cash went to rural communities.
The remarks, which he made during a private hustings event in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, last Friday, will prove awkward as the country faces a cost of living crisis.
It contrasts sharply with comments he made during a Sky TV debate on Thursday, during which he said his record showed he was committed to helping the poorest in society.
Last night Mr Sunak defended himself, telling The Daily Telegraph that the furore was “very, very straightforward to clear up” and there was “not a problem at all” if the public examined his record in government.
In the video, published by the New Statesman, Mr Sunak was seen standing on a lawn addressing Tory members, who were sitting around him.
“I managed to start changing the funding formulas to make sure that areas like this are getting the funding they deserve because we inherited a bunch of formulas from the Labour Party that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas,” he told them.
“That needed to be undone, I started the work of undoing that”, he added.
When asked that he appeared to be arguing that more money should be spent in wealthy areas like Tunbridge Wells, Mr Sunak said: “People come to that event from all over the county of Kent, it’s not that they’re all from Tunbridge Wells and I think that again, it’s slightly wrong to focus on that.”
Challenged again that the video did not present a favourable impression of him to voters, he said: “If people want to clip a very short part and not have the overall explanation, there’s not a lot I can do about that.”
The average house price in Tunbridge Wells was £528,459 at the end of last year, compared with a national average of £271,000. Mr Sunak also raised the issue of centralised funding formulas during a televised Tory hustings in Exeter last week, saying they “don’t work properly” for rural areas.
He pointed out that “very small village primary schools” are punished by Whitehall spending targets because they are deemed to be not as efficient as larger ones in towns and cities.
The ex-chancellor said he had already started to change how money was allocated for social care and transport to make sure more goes to the countryside. “We need to make sure that the voice of rural Britain is heard loudly and clearly down in Westminster,” he told Tory members to applause.
Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary, expressed anger at his latest remarks. “This leadership race is revealing the Conservatives’ true colours,” she said. “It’s scandalous that Rishi Sunak is openly boasting that he fixed the rules to funnel taxpayers’ money to prosperous Tory shires.
“This is our money. It should be distributed fairly and spent where it’s most needed – not used as a bribe to Tory members.”
Mr Sunak previously faced criticism over the allocation of levelling up cash, which Labour claimed was being funnelled towards Conservative areas.
It emerged that 40 out of the 45 areas given a share of a £1billion towns fund were represented by Tory MPS.
‘We inherited a bunch of formulas from Labour that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas’