Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty seen for first time since he became PM ahead of no10 move

Rishi Sunak’s multi-millionaire wife Akshata Murty has been spotted for the first time since her husband became Prime Minister as the family prepares to move into Number 10 Downing Street. 

Mrs Murty was pictured leaving the couple’s London home this morning sporting casual wear as Britain’s new PM gets ready to move back into No10 – just six months after moving out of Downing Street to his £6.6million Kensington townhouse.

As Chancellor, the former Goldman Sachs banker lived in the No10 flat rather than the one above No11 normally used by the senior Treasury minister.

In April Mr Sunak, his wife, their daughters Krishna and Anoushka and family labrador Nova moved out to be closer to the children’s £22,000-a-year private school. 

The then-Chancellor split his time between the properties while his family remained in west London.

Though speculation had been rife that the new Prime Minister may now choose to revive this living arrangement rather than live in Downing Street full-time, it is understood Mr Sunak will move back into the No10 flat, where he and his wife were said to be ‘very happy’. 

Rishi Sunak’s multi-millionaire wife Akshata Murty has been spotted for the first time since he became Prime Minister

Mrs Murty (left) and the family are preparing to move into No.10 Downing Street from their Kensington townhouse

It is understood Mr Sunak will move back into the No10 flat, where he and his wife were said to be ‘very happy’

Rishi Sunak’s multi-millionaire wife Akshata Murty – seen for the first time on Friday morning since Mr Sunak took over as PM

It means that Mr Sunak will not live in the flat above No11, which is considered more spacious and has been the custom for prime ministers since 1997, when Sir Tony Blair swept to power.

The flat was renovated by Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie for an estimated £200,000 in the so-called ‘wallpapergate’ scandal – which notoriously involved gold wallpaper that cost thousands of pounds.  

Mr Sunak is still keeping the London townhouse, and if he wants to get away from Downing Street, he will be able to spend weekends at the Prime Minister’s official country estate, Chequers, with his family, as well as spending time at their London properties and their constituency home in North Yorkshire.

Downing Street has been home to the leader of the UK Government since 1735 and has been the headquarters from which the nation’s leaders have navigated world wars, financial crises and pandemics. 

With an estimated net fortune of £730million that includes multiple properties in Britain and the US, a string of business interests and even a fleet of cars including a ‘high-spec’ Range Rover, a ‘top-of-the-range’ Lexus and a BMW, the Oxbridge former Goldman Sachs banker and his Stanford-educated spouse are by far the wealthiest occupants of Downing Street in history.  

Rishi Sunak alongside his billionaire heiress wife Akshata Murty – by far the wealthiest occupants of Downing Street in history

Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata (pictured at a campaigning event in Grantham in July) have two children, Krishna, 11, and Anoushka, nine

Ms Murty is said to be wealthier than even King Charles III – here the new PM and his wife appear in a photo with the King from February this year as they attended a reception to celebrate the British Asian Trust at the British Museum, London

Then-chancellor Rishi Sunak holding the budget box inside his official residence at 11 Downing Street in March last year

Rishi Sunak making a speech outside 10 Downing Street as Britain’s new Prime Minister on Tuesday October 25

Ms Murty is said to be wealthier than even King Charles III due to her £430million stake in her billionaire tycoon father Narayana Murthy’s IT empire. 

She has also continued to hold stakes in businesses over the years including a joint venture with Amazon, Cloudtail, in India worth £900million a year, a project she and Rishi set up together, Catamaran Ventures UK, shares in the firm which runs Jamie Oliver’s Pizzeria and burger chain Wendy’s in India, and Etonian tailor New & Lingwood, which makes pupils’ tailcoats costing £2,500 each. 

Rishi’s father-in-law, dubbed ‘India’s Bill Gates’ due to his role pioneering the country’s tech boom, was recently ranked the sixth richest person in India and the 654th in the world after his remarkable success in founding Bangalore-based IT firm Infosys in the 1980s, now a £9.6billion multinational that employs more than 345,000 people.

While Akshata’s father amassed his estimated £3.9billion wealth, her mother Sudha became the first female engineer to work for India’s biggest car manufacturer TELCO. 

At their daughter’s wedding to Rishi in 2009, more than 1,000 guests were invited including Indian actor Girish Karnad, cricketers Anil Kumble and Syed Kirmani, former champion badminton player Prakash Padukone, business tycoon Azim Premji, known as the tsar of the Indian IT industry, and billionaire entrepreneur Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chair of a biotechnology company based in Bangalore. 

But despite their eyewatering wealth, Mr Sunak’s parents-in-law are introverts who live modestly, do their own dishes and enjoy nothing more than reading books, according to the account of their lives described in Sudha’s 2017 book Three Thousand Stitches.

This is the extraordinary web of homes and businesses with links to Mr Sunak and his wife Akshata

The extraordinary wealth of the wider family of Rishi Sunak’s billionaire heiress wife Akshata Murty has been laid bare

Rishi Sunak has provoked a row after Downing Street revealed the new Prime Minister won’t be attending the Cop-27 climate summit in Egypt next month

Rishi Sunak has provoked a row after Downing Street revealed the new Prime Minister won’t be attending the Cop-27 climate summit in Egypt next month.

His absence from the international gathering in Sharm el-Sheikh will allow him to focus on ‘other pressing domestic commitments’, No10 said.

The Cop-27 summit is being held between November 6-18 with world leaders expected to attend in the first week.

Mr Sunak has unveiled plans for an Autumn budget on November 17 as he seeks to deal with a blackhole in the public finances following recent economic turmoil. 

Labour accused the PM of a ‘massive failure of leadership’ and claimed he would now be ‘missing in action’ on climate issues.

Downing Street also confirmed that Mr Sunak had downgraded the status of climate minister Graham Stuart, who will no longer be attending Cabinet.

The climate summit will come 12 months after the UK hosted the Cop-26 summit in Glasgow, which was attended by a string of Cabinet ministers – including Mr Sunak himself as Chancellor.

Confirming Mr Sunak won’t be attending this year’s follow-up summit, a No10 spokeswoman said: ‘The PM is not expected to attend Cop27 and this is due to other pressing domestic commitments including preparations for the Autumn budget.

‘The UK will be fully represented by other senior ministers as well as the Cop President Alok Sharma.’

Downing Street insisted the PM remained ‘absolutely committed’ to supporting the climate conference and denied his decision to skip the summit signalled a downgrading of climate issues as a Government priority.

The No10 spokeswoman added: ‘We remain committed to net zero and to leading international and domestic action to tackle climate change.

‘The UK is forging ahead of many other countries on net zero.

‘We will obviously continue to work closely with Egypt as the hosts of Cop-27 and to make sure that all countries are making progress on the historic commitments they made at the Glasgow climate pact.’