Rishi Sunak takes advisory role with Goldman Sachs while serving as MP

Rishi Sunak is to take on a new job as an adviser to the investment bank Goldman Sachs while still serving as an MP.

The Conservative former prime minister will be restricted from lobbying the government on behalf of the bank for another year and will give his salary from the role to the Richmond Project, a charity he set up to encourage numeracy.

In the role, which marks Sunak’s return to the bank he first worked for in the early 2000s, he will advise clients of Goldman Sachs on economic and geopolitical interests.

Announcing the appointment, David Solomon, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said: “I am excited to welcome Rishi back to Goldman Sachs in his new capacity as a senior adviser.”

The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) set some conditions for the appointment, including the standard two-year ban on lobbying from the point of Sunak leaving ministerial office in July 2024.

It listed one of the risks associated with Sunak’s new job as his overall oversight of the changes to financial services known as the “Edinburgh reforms”, which benefited banks such as Goldman Sachs, one of the first to remove its cap on bankers’ bonuses.

However, Acoba also noted that Sunak was not personally involved in the development of the policy and only met Solomon once as part of a group round table with the financial services sector.

Goldman Sachs wrote to the committee, making clear it was not a role involving lobbying, and that Sunak would not draw on privileged information from his time as prime minister, make use of contacts made in government to influence policy, or provide advice on the terms or subject matter of bids or contracts with the UK government.

Sunak has largely taken a low-profile approach to life after serving as prime minister from October 2022 until the election last year. He has taken on roles at Oxford University and Stanford in the US, and has made few interventions in politics.

Sunak and his wife, the IT heiress Akshata Murty, have an estimated combined fortune of about £640m, according to the Sunday Times rich list, making them about as wealthy as King Charles.

The list found their wealth increased by about £120m in the run-up to the last general election, when millions of Britons continued to struggle with the cost of living.