Rishi Sunak, the Treasury chief secretary is being tipped by senior Tories to run a new economic “super-ministry” after a big cabinet reshuffle due in February, the Financial Times has reported. According to the publication, Conservatives close to the prime minister said Sunak’s performance during the election has enabled him to be promoted to a full cabinet portfolio in the reshuffle.
The prime minister is expected to create a beefed-up business ministry — absorbing the international trade department — with a remit to attract inward investment and “level up” Britain’s economy by targeting help at poorer areas including parts of the midlands and northern England.
Several ministers believe that the Treasury chief secretary will, after doing a stint in a Whitehall “spending department”, return to One Horseguards Road as chancellor. “In cabinet, Boris will often turn to Rishi first on the economy,” said one minister.
Sunak’s business has previously worked at the Goldman Sachs and a hedge before he co-founded an investment business “working with companies from Silicon Valley to Bangalore”. He is the son-in-law of Indian software tycoon Narayan Murthy. Sunak decided to back Brexit in the 2016 referendum.
