CHANCELLOR Rishi Sunak, who was born and raised in Southampton, has become the first frontline politician to feature on the Sunday Times Rich List.

The chancellor and his wife Akshata Murty have a joint fortune of £730million, which landed them at number 222 on the annual list as Russian billionaires tumbled down the rankings.

The majority of their wealth was driven by Ms Murty’s £690m stake in Infosys, the Indian IT company founded by her father, the authors of the Rich List said.

Rishi Sunak was born in Southampton General Hospital in 1980, to Yashvir Sunak, a GP in the city, and Usha Sunak, a pharmacist.

He went to Southampton’s Oakmount prep school and then to Stroud School before becoming a boarder at Winchester College.

After a degree at Oxford University and a master's in business administration at Stanford University in the US, the future chancellor became wealthy as a hedge fund manager. He married Akshata Murthy, the daughter of an Indian billionaire, in 2009, and became MP for Richmond in Yorkshire in 2015.

The chancellor’s ranking along with his wife in the Sunday Times Rich List comes after his finances came under intense scrutiny.

Last month, it was revealed that Ms Murty had non-dom status, which typically applies to someone who was born overseas and spends much of their time in the UK but still considers another country to be their permanent residence or “domicile”.

It has been estimated Ms Murty’s non-dom status could have saved her £20m in taxes on dividends from her shares in Infosys.

She later agreed to pay UK taxes on her worldwide income.

Mr Sunak was cleared of breaching the ministerial code by Boris Johnson’s standards adviser after considering the tax affairs.

Top place in the Sunday Times Rich List went to Sri and Gopi Hinduja, who run the Mumbai-based conglomerate Hinduja Group, who saw their growth grow by more than £11billion to £28.47bn.

Entrepreneur Sir James Dyson and his family moved up to second in the list after a £6.7bn increase to £23bn, while property investors David and Simon Reuben were third with £22.26bn.

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