Chancellor in row with Labour over support for wedding firm

RISHI SUNAK has been urged to focus his efforts on saving the economy after writing to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accusing him of breaking House of Commons etiquette.

In a letter seen by The Yorkshire Post, Mr Sunak accused Sir Keir of having “inadvertently misled” the Commons after an exchange with Boris Johnson during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.

During the weekly standoff, Sir Keir referenced a wedding business in the Chancellor’s own North Yorkshire constituency of Richmond who had contacted him to say they could not get any help under the new job support scheme launched by Mr Sunak last week. Mandy Baker- Bird, the owner of Yorkshire Wedding Barns, near Richmond, since broke cover to publicly describe her industry as a “sacrificial lamb” and said she was having to look at making redundancies in order to save her business.

But on Thursday, Mr Sunak wrote to Sir Keir to say he had “misled” the House and should have contacted him first about matters in his constituency, as Commons guidelines dictate.

And he added: “I appreciate you will be busy so understand that such an oversight will have been made in error, but in future I would be most grateful if you could do the appropriate due diligence and minimise the future risk of such mistakes.”

The letter detailed how Sir Keir had “inadvertently misled the House on the facts and circumstances under which my constituent finds themselves” as Ms BakerBird had accessed a variety of Government schemes to support her business including a Governmentbacked loan, £ 10,000 grant, and made use of the furlough scheme.

Mr Sunak said she had also had written correspondence from his office and attended a constituency surgery.

Sir Keir’s intervention did not claim that Ms Baker- Bird had never received any support, but that the latest scheme – where a business has to be judged as viable by being able to bring back staff for a third of their hours to access extra help – did not assist her as events could not go ahead.

In an email from Ms BakerBird shared by Labour she said she had received “a £ 10,000 grant in March but nothing since”.

Bridget Phillipson, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “This letter raises serious concerns about Rishi Sunak’s priorities. Businesses in his own backyard are telling him that his economic plan will force them to lay off staff. But rather than respond to their concerns, he complains that someone else did instead. The Chancellor should focus on protecting jobs and businesses, not on his own ego.”

But a source close to Mr Sunak said: “When a Leader of the Opposition makes this kind of statement in the House as a political weapon, it’s important to point out Keir could have been misleading the House, to point out he should have followed parliamentary etiquette.”

The Chancellor should focus on protecting jobs. Bridget Phillipson, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury.