Rishi Sunak’s household who stay in lap of luxurious – PM’s billionaire spouse and children

Rishi Sunak has come under increased pressure after attempting to plead poverty by claiming his family had to ‘go without’ to put him through private school.

The beleaguered Prime Minister will tonight tell ITV journalist Paul Brand about his tough start in life, which saw his parents have to sacrifice a Sky TV package to send him to the prestigious fee-paying boarding school Winchester College.

While the UK is on its knees with food prices and energy bills going through the roof, the helicopter-loving PM lives the life of luxury with his billionaire heiress wife and their two children.

Who is Rishi Sunak’s wife?

Akshata Murty is a former fashion designer and mother of their two girls who has lived in Downing Street since late 2022. She also happens to be the daughter of billionaire tech tycoon N.R. Narayana Murthy – co-founder of the IT firm Infosys, and the sixth-richest man in India.

The 44-year-old was born in India and raised by her maternal grandparents before emigrating to California to study French and economics at Claremont McKenna College. Akshata has a diploma in clothes manufacturing from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising as well as an MBA from Stanford – where she met Rishi in 2004.

The pair married in 2009 in a lavish two-day wedding in Bangalore and share two daughters, Anoushka and Krishna, who split their time between the family’s newly refurbished £7million West London pad and the Grade-II listed Kirby Sigston Manor in North Yorkshire. The Georgian mansion, purchased by the couple for a cool £1.5million in 2015, boasts a £400,000 swimming pool, hot tub, yoga studio, gym and tennis court.

The girls are both privately educated at the £22,350-a-year Glendower Prep school in South Kensington – where David and Victoria Beckham’s daughter Harper is also a pupil.

Akshata Murty’s net worth

Rishi Sunak ‘s immense wealth was brought to the forefront when his billionaire heiress wife eventually promised to pay UK tax following a huge backlash. In April 2022, Murty bowed to pressure after claiming non-domicile status – which meant she didn’t have to pay UK tax on her overseas income – and said she would pay given her husband’s status in a voluntary move.

The BBC estimated she would have avoided coughing up £2.1m a year in UK tax. It came just months before Rishi automatically became PM in October 2022 after Penny Mordaunt crashed out of the Tory leadership race, having failed to secure more than 100 votes from fellow MPs.

The couple sits on a humongous combined fortune of £529m, according to the Sunday Times rich list, a fall from £730m in 2022. His wealth has been criticised over the years, with Labour MP Nadia Whittome tweeting: “Remember this whenever he talks about making ‘tough decisions’ that working-class people will pay for.”

Mr Sunak boasts a buoyant property portfolio and has made some lavish purchases, from Prada shoes to a £5million California penthouse.

Rishi Sunak’s life of luxury

He’s the richest person to ever inhabit No10 Downing Street, and he’s thought nothing of splashing the cash here and there – even while the country struggles through catastrophic cost of living crisis. Between them, Mr Sunak and Ms Murty own a portfolio of four impressive properties – two in London, their mansion in Yorkshire and another in California, all of which are valued at more than £15m.

The family spends the majority of their time at their five-bedroom mews home in Kensington, west London, which is estimated by estate agents to be worth more than £7m. At weekends and during the holidays, the family of four will escape to the north Yorkshire countryside to reside in their Grade II-listed Georgian manor constituency home in the village of Kirby Sigston.

They also own a flat in west London on Old Brompton road, which is used by visiting family. And over in Santa Monica, the Sunaks have their own idyllic penthouse, valued at £5.5million with “stunning views of the Santa Monica mountains”. It’s a place where you can “wake up to the sound of waves crashing against the shore”, and even has a “pet spa”. Rishi and Akshata met there whilst they were students, and holidayed there as a family in 2023.

He said the California trip was “really special” as they had been a few years without a “proper” summer holiday. “We’re going to California, which is where I met my wife, so it’s very special to us, but the kids are very excited because I’m taking them to Disneyland,” he added in a chat with LBC radio.