Sunak faces questions over ‘blind’ investment holdings
Chancellor’s constituents express disappointment after revelations about his wife’s tax arrangements
RISHI SUNAK is under pressure to reveal details of his private investments or ditch them altogether, amid warnings of possible conflicts of interest with his role as Chancellor.
Mr Sunak has a “blind management arrangement” that lets him retain personal holding in an investment fund without having day-to-day control or “live knowledge” of the assets.
The system is designed to help prevent conflicts of interest by avoiding scenarios in which ministers make decisions in their official roles knowing they will result in their own investments increasing in value.
But Mr Sunak is the first Chancellor to have registered a holding in an investment fund since the creation of the official list of ministerial interests in 2009. A Tory MP questioned whether it was appropriate for a chancellor to retain a portfolio of financial investments, given their role managing the economy, regardless of whether he or she retained control or oversight of the investments.
Separately, a former minister who previously had a similar blind arrangement claimed that Mr Sunak was likely to have a good idea of what was in his investment portfolio, based on its composition before he entered the Treasury. “A degree of knowledge is going to be inevitable,” they claimed.
David Davis, another former minister, said there was a “general problem of transparency around ministers having blind trusts” and suggested that their investments should be listed “in the public domain”.
The Sunday Telegraph understands that Akshata Murty, Mr Sunak’s wife, and the couple’s two daughters have moved out of their grace-and-favour flat above 10 Downing Street while the debate about Mr Sunak’s political future rages.
Pat McFadden, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, claimed that Mr Sunak’s investments could be “linked to offshore tax havens”. Mr Sunak has faced questions about his family’s finances after it was revealed that his wife holds non-domicile status and he held a US green card during his time as Chancellor.
Last night, Mr Sunak ordered an inquiry into the leak of his wife’s tax status, as allies said officials could be prosecuted for releasing the information.
A source said: “This will be a more aggressive version of leak inquiries, where it will not only investigate who were the keepers of the sensitive information and who had access to that information, but also who, if anyone, requested to see it.
“The inquiry will be carried out with a view to potential criminal prosecutions because it is against the law to leak someone’s tax status.”
A source admitted that Mr Sunak would have known the specifics of the investments at the point that he instigated the “blind management” arrangement in 2019, but insisted that the mechanism meant “from that point on, he has no idea whether they would still be there or not”.
The Treasury declined to answer questions about the size and composition of the investments, or whether any had links to tax havens. Only four other ministers declare “blind management” arrangements in the list of ministers’ interests, all of whom are peers.
Mr Sunak’s predecessor Sajid Javid, a former banker, declared no financial interests while he was Chancellor.
Allies of Mr Sunak also hit back at “somewhat distasteful” comments “speculating on or engaging in a conversation about the death of a woman and what might happen to her estate”.
A source said the Chancellor’s detractors should refrain from “assuming what she might do with that estate”, after it was reported she would avoid more than £400 million of tax if she was to die, because of a 1950s treaty between Britain and India.
‘There is a general problem of transparency around ministers having blind trusts’
An air of disappointment permeated the market square in the town of Richmond, as if a bright schoolboy had not only let the teacher down, but himself as well.
Here, however, it was the voters of Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire constituency who felt their once rising star had blotted his copybook.
Having ruminated over the twisting and turning that had accompanied the revelations about the non-dom tax status of his wife Akshata Murty and Mr Sunak’s own decision to retain a US green card for more than a year after becoming Chancellor, the verdict of his constituents was not kind.
Fergus Brown, 62, a self-employed renewable energy consultant, said: “He’s got a very loyal following in the town, but there’s an awful lot of people for whom it leaves a very bad taste in their mouth when they’re struggling just to do their basics.
“He really needs to put his house in order before he tells us how we’re going to pay our taxes.”
Mr Brown who admitted to being “Left-wing inclined”, added that while Mr Sunak is viewed by his constituents as “fundamentally competent” he had shown himself to be “careless”.
Norman Dimon, a retired theatre director who has lived in Richmond for 40 years, said: “It’s not really acceptable for people who are already very wealthy to be looking for perfectly legal ways to avoid their responsibilities to the communities they live in.”
The 69-year-old added: “I don’t blame him personally in that respect, I just think that’s the system we operate under. I think it’s the whole non-dom system that’s at fault, not a particular participant in it.
“He struck me as being not really connected [to the community] and the information that’s in the news is reinforcing that suspicion.”
Nursing a pint at his table in the Ralph Fitz Randal pub, Sean, a former soldier in his 50s who sustained several injuries during a tour of Iraq, took issue with what he regards as the hypocrisy of Mr Sunak.
“It seems very double standards in that, while I understand tax avoidance is different from tax evading, it’s just not right either way,” he said. “You’re the Chancellor of the Exchequer, you’re supposed to represent the people in your constituency.”
Sean, who typically votes for the Yorkshire Party, which campaigns for the establishment of a devolved Yorkshire Assembly, said: “If there was an election tomorrow, I’d vote Labour in the hope everybody else has got the same idea just to get rid of someone.”
Once their pride and joy - a man they thought might even rise to the highest office in the land one day - the Chancellor and his wife’s complex tax arrangements have left some voters disappointed.
“He’s a very friendly, very nice person,” said Caroline Conway, 52, who has lived in Richmond all her life and runs a successful holiday-let business.
“But that’s not enough when you’re running the country,” she said of her MP, recalling how Mr Sunak had failed
‘How a multimillionaire can know what it’s like to be hard up is a mystery. This is a reality check for him’
an early test during his 2015 general election campaign when he tripped up over the name of a local school while canvassing on her road. “You need to do your homework,” Ms Conway, who votes Labour, told him.
Lucy, who is in her 50s and works in education, said: “When people who are in finance are not in touch with reality, I think that’s an issue.
“I don’t know what it’s like to be as hard up as some people less fortunate than me. How he, a multimillionaire can, is a mystery to me. I think it’s a reality check [for Mr Sunak].
“But I think the people who are stirring this up are [doing so] from within the Conservative Party. He would have been the next prime minister if this hadn’t come out.”