Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty’s net wealth has leaped to £651million, increasing their rich list ranking by 30 places.
The Prime Minister and his super-rich wife saw their wealth increase by £122million, from 529million in 2023. Their joint fortune is driven largely by Ms Murty’s stake in Infosys. an Indian IT company her father founded.
The couple are the 245th richest people in the whole of Britain, according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2024, which orders Britain’s 350 wealthiest people. It is an increase from 275th last year. They are the wealthiest couple to ever enter No10.
Over the last year Infosys’s shares have grown in value by £108.8million to nearly £590million. The latest annual report suggests that Ms Murty received about £13million in dividends during that time, on top of the more than £60million she has been paid in previous years. She is set to receive another £10.5million this year, the rich list analysis found.
Mr Sunak was confronted with descriptions about his wealth at Tory party conference in September. A word cloud presented by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg showed the phrases voters associate with him. They included: “rich”, “himself”, “the rich”, “money”, “not sure”, “no idea”, “upper class”, “greed”, “don’t know”, “Britain”, and “elite”.
Last year Mr Sunak became the first frontline politician to join the Sunday Times’s Rich List, alongside his super-wealthy wife, Akshata Murty. It estimated their joint fortune to be over £700million, driven largely by Ms Murty’s stake in Infosys – an Indian IT company her father founded.
Appearing on the first day of the Tory conference, the PM was presented with the word cloud by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, who told him: “You can see there – rightly or wrongly – what many people associate you with is your personal wealth.” Asked whether it worried him that people believed he was out-of-touch, Mr Sunak said his job was “to deliver for people” and save families on their bills.
The list of the richest people in Britain showed that King Charles’ wealth also grew for the year, rising to £610million from £600million. Tony Blair’s eldest son Euan Blair also featured on the list, as a new entry, ranking 337th. He set up the £1.4billion apprenticeship tech company Multiverse. His stake is worth at least £350million and he has raked in millions more from share sales.
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Lee McLean / SWNS)
The list recorded that the number of British billionaires tumbled again, continuing a theme seen in 2023. The number of billionaires reached a peak of 177 in 2022, before dropping to 171 and falling again to 165 this year, driven by some seeing their private wealth contract amid high borrowing rates and others leaving the country.
It comes after polling showed a huge 72% of voters would support a 1-2% tax on assets over £10million. The measure is estimated to impact just 20,000 people in the UK and would raise £22billion per year. Just 13% said they would not support such a measure.
The survey for Tax Justice UK also found almost two-thirds (64%) would be more likely to back a political party pledging higher taxes on the wealth of the very richest to fund public services like the crisis-hit NHS.
Head of advocacy and tax policy at Tax Justice UK, Rachael Henry, said: “Taxing the wealth of the very richest is an extremely popular policy – a vote winner – and an incredibly sensible way to help fix the country. People in Britain are really struggling and so are public services.”
She added: “The NHS is wounded, getting an NHS dentist is akin to a lottery win, and GP surgeries are creaking under pressure. Politicians need to see the wood for the trees and use the tools available to them to inject life back into the country.”
Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has ruled out wealth taxes but vowed to close loopholes in the Tory plan to scrap the non-dom tax status for the super-rich. She has also pledged to fund more NHS appointments and breakfast clubs in schools with a new crackdown on “tax dodgers” – raising an estimated £5billion-per-year. Speaking last month, she said Labour will “take on the tax dodgers because if you make your home and do your business in Britain, then you should pay your taxes here too”.