Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak is an Indian Origin British Politician currently serving as the Chancellor of the Exchequer since February 2020. He is a member if Conservative Party and has also served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2019 to 2020. He is the Member of Parliament for Richmond (Yorks) in North Yorkshire since 2015.

Rishi Sunak was born on 12 May 1980 in Southampton, Hampshire, South East England to Indian parents Yashvir and Usha Sunak who were born in Kenya and Tanzania respectively. His father was a general practitioner while his mother was a pharmacist who ran a local pharmacy. Sunak's grandparents were born in Punjab Province, British India, and emigrated to the UK in the 1960s from East Africa. Sunak is the eldest of three siblings. His brother Sanjay is a psychologist and his sister Rakhi works as the Head of Humanitarian, Peacebuilding, UN Funds and Programmes at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

In 2014, he was chosen as the Conservative candidate for Richmond (Yorks), a seat that was previously been held by William Hague. The seat has been held by the Conservative Party for over 100 years now. That year, he headed the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Research Unit of Policy Exchange and co-wrote a report on BME communities in the United Kingdom.

In the 2015 General Election, he was elected as an MP from Richmond (Yorks). From 2015 to 2017, he served as a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee.

Re-elected with an increased majority at the 2017 General Election, he was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Local Government in 2018. Sunak voted for Theresa May’s Brexit deal on all three occasions.

During the 2019 Conservative leadership contest, Sunak co-wrote the article ‘The Tories are in deep peril. Only Boris Johnson can save us’ with fellow Tory MPs, Oliver Dowden and Robert Jenrick. All three individuals were subsequently rewarded with senior government posts by the new Tory Prime Minister. Sunak became Chief Secretary to the Treasury.