The name on everyone’s lips – Rishi Sunak
After winning the contest to lead the Conservative Party, Rishi Sunak is poised to take office as Britain’s next prime minister. He now has the responsibility of guiding a very divided nation through an economic crisis that will make millions of people impoverished.
Britain’s first leader of colour will be Rishi Sunak, one of the wealthiest MPs in Westminster. King Charles will formally ask him to form a government, succeeding outgoing Prime Minister Liz Truss, who held the post for just 44 days before resigning.
A little about the next Indian-origin Prime Minister of the UK, read along!
Who is Rishi Sunak?
In Southampton, Hampshire, South East England, on May 12, 1980, Rishi Sunak was born to Indian parents Yashvir and Usha Sunak, who had been born in Kenya and Tanzania, respectively. His mother was a pharmacist who oversaw a neighbourhood drugstore, while his father was a general practitioner.
He graduated from Stanford University, Winchester College, Lincoln College, and Oxford. Sunak worked as a server at a Southampton curry house during his summer vacation.
His Political and Business Career
He was an analyst with the investment bank Goldman Sachs from 2001 to 2004. In September 2006, he joined The Children’s Investment Fund Management (TCI), quit his job, and was made a partner. In 2009, he joined Theleme Partners, a different hedge fund company. Additionally, he was a director of Catamaran Venture owned by N. R. Narayana Murthy, his father-in-law.
He was selected as William Hague’s successor as the Conservative candidate for Richmond (Yorks) in 2014. The Conservative Party has held the seat for well over a century. He co-authored a report on BME communities in the UK while serving as the head of Policy Exchange’s Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Research Unit that year.
He was chosen as Richmond’s MP in the 2015 general election (Yorks). He participated on the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs Select Committee from 2015 to 2017.
Sunak backed the 2016 EU referendum. Additionally, he authored a paper for the Centre for Policy Studies that backed the construction of free ports after Brexit. The year after that, he authored another report supporting the development of a retail bond market for SMEs.
In the 2017 General Election, he was returned to his seat as a Member of Parliament. From January 2018 to July 2019, he was the Under-Secretary of State for the Parliament. In the 2019 contest for the leadership of the Conservative Party, he backed Prime Minister Boris Johnson. In fact, he co-wrote an article for a British national daily to promote Johnson during the campaign in June 2019.
Sunak was re-elected in the 2019 general election, and in July 2019, Prime Minister Boris Johnson named him Chief Secretary to the Treasury. He previously worked for Chancellor Sajid Javid. On July 25, 2019, he joined the Privy Council.
Sunak’s Tenure During Covid-19
On March 11, 2020, Sunak delivered his first budget amid the COVID-19 epidemic. As a result of the financial damage the pandemic had, Sunak pledged an additional £30 billion in spending, of which £12 billion was earmarked towards reducing the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic impact.
On March 17, 2020, he announced a pay subsidy programme for workers and £330 billion in emergency support for enterprises. He introduced the employment retention programme three days later but faced harsh criticism because an estimated 100,000 individuals were ineligible for it.
Sunak stated in his March 2021 budget that the FY 2020–2021 deficit was the biggest in peacetime at £355 billion. In addition to a five-year freeze on the tax-free personal allowance and the higher rate income tax threshold, he raised the corporate tax from 19 percent to 25 percent in 2023.
A tax reform deal to implement a worldwide minimum tax on multinational corporations and internet technology businesses was signed at the G7 Summit in June 2021. The OECD made an agreement to participate in the tax reform plan in October 2021.
Family
Akshata Murthy is the daughter of NR Narayana Murthy, the billionaire Indian software entrepreneur known as the “Bill Gates of India” and the founder of Infosys. 0.91% of the corporation, or around £700 million, is reportedly owned by his daughter, according to reports.
In 2009, the 1,000 guests present at the two-day wedding took place in Bengaluru, the bride’s hometown.
Akshata Murthy, the spouse of Rishi Sunak, has non-domiciled status, which exempts her from paying taxes on earnings she made while residing in the UK. Murthy spends about 30,000 pounds to obtain the specific status, which also frees her from having to pay an additional 20 million pounds in expected UK taxes.
Rishi Sunak reportedly disclosed that he kept his Permanent Resident Card from the 2000s until 2021, including the 18 months after becoming chancellor, which necessitated filing U.S. tax returns.
The projected combined wealth of Sunak and Murty is £730 million, double the estimated wealth of King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort, which is between £300 and £350 million. They have four homes worth more than £15 million that are spread out around the globe.
Next Step Ahead
Sunak became prime minister in under seven years, which is quicker than any previous PM in the contemporary era. Sunak’s climb to the summit wasn’t without its bumps. He was anticipated to leave politics after losing to Liz Truss in a ballot of Tory members on September 5. But Sunak was prepared with the backing of the followers he had gained over the course of the summer campaign when Truss was brought down in flames by her disastrous and unfunded tax cuts.
On October 25, 2022, Sunak will meet with the King and be sworn in as prime minister. His speech at Downing Street is then anticipated.
