Rishi Sunak has been told to come clean about how he funnelled cash from deprived urban areas as he was confronted over a damning video showed him bragging about it.
The Prime Minister was secretly filmed addressing Tory members in leafy Tunbridge Wells saying he had reversed funding formulas which "shoved all funding into deprived urban areas" to benefit "areas like this".
Mr Sunak, who was campaigning for the Tory leadership at the time, was branded a "Reverse Robin Hood" after the clip leaked.
Labour today called for an independent investigation into the comments.
In their first head-to-head at Prime Minister's Questions today, Labour leader Keir Starmer fumed: "He (Mr Sunak) pretends he's on the side of working people, but in private he says something very different.
"In the summer he was secretly recorded at a garden party in Tunbridge Wells boasting to a group of Tory members that he moved money away from deprived urban areas to wealthy places instead."
Mr Starmer demanded: "Why doesn't he do the right thing and undo the changes he made to this funding formula?"
The video, shared with The New Statesman, showed Mr Sunak tell members in Tunbridge Wells - which has had a Tory MP since the constituency was created in 1974: “I managed to start changing the funding formulas, to make sure areas like this are getting the funding they deserve because we inherited a bunch of formulas from Labour that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas and that needed to be undone.
"I started the work of undoing that.”
According to RightMove, the average house price in the leafy town 30 miles outside of London last year was £498,933 - compared to £281,161 across the rest of England.
After the video was widely shared, Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner branded the candidate "Reverse Robin Hood Rishi" on Twitter.
Today Labour’s Lisa Nandy called for an independent investigation into comments made by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who boasted that while Chancellor he changed funding formulas to redirect taxpayers’ money from “deprived” areas to affluent Tory shires.
Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy has today written to her new counterpart, Michael Gove, urging him to launch an independent investigation to establish what funding formulas were changed, the nature of those changes.
She wrote: “The Conservative Government was elected in 2019 on a flagship promise to level up parts of the country that had experienced relative economic decline.
“This could not be more serious. The Prime Minister has admitted that when he was Chancellor, he fixed the rules to funnel taxpayers’ money from “deprived” to more affluent parts of the country. This is the complete opposite of levelling up.
“The Prime Minister has no mandate from the electorate to reverse the commitments made in 2019. His admission undermines the trust and confidence of the public and shatters the legitimacy of this government. It is a warning sign that Rishi Sunak is not on the side of working people.”
Mr Sunak responded in the Commons: "I know the Right Honourable Gentleman (Mr Starmer) rarely leaves North London, but if he does he will know that there are deprived areas in our rural communities, and our coastal communities and across the south."
The Prime Minister added: "This summer I was being honest about the difficulties we face."
He went on to lash out at the opposition leader, saying: "I told the truth for the good to the country, he told the party what it wanted to hear.
"Leadership isn't selling fairytales, it's confronting the challenges."
It comes after the Public Accounts Committee said the Department for Levelling Up “has past form” with ministerial interference in funding decisions.
In June the cross-party committee warned it was “unsatisfactory” that ministers finalised the principles for awarding the first round of Levelling Up funds only once they knew the identities of shortlisted bidders.
In November 2020 they found that the selection process for awarding the Towns Fund had “not been impartial”.
