RISHI Sunak has been told to urgently answer questions about his wife’s alleged business links to Russia.
Akshata Murty has a reported £400 million stake in Indian IT giant Infosys. According to the Mirror, the firm is still operating in Moscow, despite have having announced last month that it was shutting its office in the Russian capital.
She has a 0.93% stake in the business which was founded by her father, although he retired in 2014 and has had no further involvement.
A spokeswoman for Murty said: “This is a matter for Infosys and should be addressed to them.
“Ms Murty is one of many minority shareholders and has no involvement in the operational decisions of the company.”
However, Labour insists there were still questions for the Chancellor to answer if his family was benefitting from a company that remained active in Russia.
Shadow treasury minister Tulip Siddiq said: “It is really important that the Chancellor clarifies what is happening here and whether his immediate family is benefitting from Infosys’ continued presence in Russia."
She continued: “We can’t have a situation where a UK Chancellor and his family maintain economic interests in the Putin regime.”
In a statement, Infosys said: “As you are aware, during the quarterly results, Infosys announced its decision to transition services from Russia to its global delivery centres.
“While the company does not have any active relationships with local Russian enterprises, we have a small team of fewer than 100 employees in Russia, which services some of our global clients.
“We are currently working closely with those clients that are being impacted to enable a smooth transition.”
Last month Murty, an Indian national, announced she would pay UK taxes on all her worldwide income after it was disclosed that she was non-domiciled in Britain for tax purposes.
The disclosure, along with the revelation that Sunak retained a US green card while he was Chancellor, was widely seen to have damaged her husband’s hopes of succeeding Boris Johnson as Tory leader.
Sunak has previously accused opponents of 'awful' smears against his family.
He told The Sun newspaper that his wife was entitled to use the so-called “non-dom” arrangement as she is an Indian citizen and plans to move back to her home country to care for her parents.
