Tag Archives: Rishi Sunak

What Ever Happened To Rishi Sunak’s Summer NFT Launch?

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The UK’s political landscape in April 2022 was a starkly different place for Rishi Sunak.

He was a chancellor who had enjoyed unusual popularity thanks to his support for workers during the pandemic only to be plunged into an unenviable position.

The country was facing the devastating economic fallout of Covid-19, Vladimir Putin had invaded Ukraine and the biggest squeeze on living standards since records began loomed large.

Tables were turning on the chancellor who was criticised for not doing enough to support the poorest in his Spring statement.

So it was little wonder that when he went all “crypto bro” on us in April, the government was accused of being “out of touch”.

While millions were struggling financially, Sunak announced measures for the notoriously unregulated cryptocurrency sector, which features incredibly volatile currencies.

“It’s my ambition to make the UK a global hub for cryptoasset technology,” he said.

The statement piece of the announcement was that Sunak had instructed the 1,136-year-old Royal Mint to issue a trendy non-fungible token by the summer.

NFTs can be anything digital such as a drawing or music but each one is a unique “one of a kind” asset – rather like a famous painting.

Damien Hirst and Bella Hadid are among the celebrities venturing into the NFT world.
Damien Hirst and Bella Hadid are among the celebrities venturing into the NFT world.

They are stored on a blockchain – the same decentralised ledger of transactions used to buy and sell cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

The crypto-phenomenon has proved fashionable with celebrities, most recently supermodel Bella Hadid joined the metaverse with an NFT collection called CY-B3LLA – featuring artworks based on 3D scans of her body.

Artist Damien Hirst is also dabbling in NFTs, announcing he will burn thousands of his paintings as part of his year-long NFT project, titled The Currency.

Buyers who purchased one of the 10,000 NFTs for £1,600 each have been asked to choose whether to keep it or trade it for the physical work. If the former, the painting will now be exhibited before being burned.

However, critics of NFTs say the tokens are fundamentally valueless, unregulated and that fraud and scams are a risk.

Given the huge number of computers needed to continuously run for a blockchain to function, they argue NFTs are also bad for the environment.

Since the Treasury’s announcement there has been a major crash in cryptocurrencies and Sunak walked out of the government along with other key backers.

Sunak is now locked in a battle with foreign secretary Liz Truss to become the next Tory leader and prime minister. His team have been approached for comment.

The "Bored Ape" collection of digital images is perhaps the most well-known, having been bought and traded by celebrities for tens of thousands of dollars.
The “Bored Ape” collection of digital images is perhaps the most well-known, having been bought and traded by celebrities for tens of thousands of dollars.

Noam Galai via Getty Images

The Treasury originally said the NFT would be issued this summer, but next to nothing has been said about the initiative.

Four months since it was announced, the public is none the wiser.

Details of the project remain largely unknown and the government has never specified what image or object the Royal Mint’s NFT would confer ownership of.

But there is a new Treasury team in town, led by former vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi, so HuffPost UK sent them a slew of questions about the NFT.

We also submitted a Freedom of Information request, asking how much taxpayers’ cash was being spent on the project.

The Treasury FoI team confirmed they held the information but refused to divulge how much they were spending on the NFT.

They said the plans were still “under development” and that ministers and officials “need space” in which plans can be refined.

Meanwhile, the Treasury’s press office remained coy about the plans, insisting they were still going ahead but unable to confirm when.

A Treasury source said it was still their “intention” to issue an NFT this summer but was unable to be more specific.

Labour’s shadow economic secretary to the Treasury Tulip Siddiq accused the government of “wasting time and money on an NFT gimmick”.

She said the Conservatives should “come clean” about how much taxpayers’ money had been “thrown down the drain” and described the lack of transparency as “shocking”.

“With the value of crypto currencies in freefall, the government must ditch its lax attitude to crypto regulation and introduce a comprehensive regulatory regime for the sector,” she said.

“The Conservative’s wild west approach to crypto has put millions of people’s savings at risk and crypto-related crime in the UK – such as fraud and money laundering – is now at record levels.”

She also said that without proper regulation the UK was at risk of falling behind global competitors in FinTech such as the EU and US.

The Royal Mint remained tight-lipped saying they were “continuing” to develop their first NFT range and would share further details in “due course”.

They did not answer a question about when it would launch.

Tulip Siddiq MP: “Instead of properly regulating the crypto sector to protect consumers and crack down on criminals, this incompetent government is wasting time and money on an NFT gimmick."
Tulip Siddiq MP: “Instead of properly regulating the crypto sector to protect consumers and crack down on criminals, this incompetent government is wasting time and money on an NFT gimmick.”

House of Commons via PA Wire/PA Images

It comes after Crypto experienced one of the worst market crashes the new industry had ever witnessed – which saw popular currency bitcoin plummeting.

In a speech last month, Bank of England deputy Governor Sir Jon Cunliffe said the majority of crypto-tokens have “no intrinsic value” and are “inherently volatile, very vulnerable to sentiment and prone to collapse”.

However, the Treasury confirmed it was still “firmly committed” to its plans to create an NFT.

A Treasury spokesperson said: “We are firmly committed to putting the UK at the forefront of cryptoasset technology and innovation by capitalising on the freedoms gained by leaving the European Union.

“Our framework will support the safe adoption of crypto whilst giving regulators the agility to respond to market developments, support innovation and protect consumers.

“Our forthcoming Financial Services and Markets Bill will set up the framework for regulating stablecoins in the UK and we will be consulting on a world-leading regime for the rest of the crypto market later this year.”

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Rishi Sunak’s Latest Plan To Punish Those Who ‘Vilify’ UK Is Being Completely Torn Apart

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Rishi Sunak has unveiled another new policy as part of his bid to become the next prime minister, but it has almost definitely backfired already.

The former chancellor, who has fallen behind his rival Liz Truss in the polls, says he intends to widen the definition of extremism to include those who “vilify” the UK.

These people, including those who have an “extreme hatred of Britain” will then be referred to the government’s de-radicalisation Prevent programme, according to Sunak, although this is a voluntary scheme.

This could include law-abiding citizens who criticise Britain, but Sunak’s campaign claim it would not include government criticism and was not legally binding.

He said these proposals would “refocus” Prevent on Islamic extremism, rather than right-wing militants, claiming: “We must never let those who seek to undermine and destroy our way of life to succeed.”

Sources also told The Telegraph that Sunak believed extremists wanted to attack the UK’s existence, not just its values.

Sunak said: “There is no more important duty for a prime minister than keeping our country and our people safe. Whether redoubling our efforts to tackle Islamist extremism or rooting out those who are vocal in their hatred of our country, I will do whatever it takes to fulfil that duty.

“Britain is a beacon of freedom, tolerance and diversity.”

Unfortunately, not everyone seemed to agree that this new policy echoed that.

Some people thought it was indicative of how the campaign was actually going for him – he is 34 points behind Truss according to the latest YouGov poll of Tory Party members.

Others pointed out that the policy announcement overlooked some key elements of the Prevent programme itself:

Then there were the people who just feared the idea altogether.

And it wasn’t long until the jokes started to get out of hand…

Truss’ camp also criticised the announcement for being “thin”, adding: “Mostly it’s a restatement of government policy. The few new proposals are superficial and unfunded with a risk of letting serious terrorists slip through the net by creating arbitrary targets.”

It comes the day after Truss’ huge U-turn on her proposed policy to cut public sector pay for workers outside of London. She has since claimed that her campaign was “misrepresented” when she said that.

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Analysis: Liz Truss’s Plan To Pay Public Sector Workers Less Outside London Wasn’t ‘Misrepresented’

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When all else fails, shoot the messenger.

As Liz Truss’s plan to save £8.8bn by paying civil servants less outside London and the south east provoked a furious Tory backlash, her team pressed the panic button.

In the preamble to the inevitable screeching U-turn, a spokesperson for Truss told journalists: “Over the last few hours there has been a wilful misrepresentation of our campaign.”

This was, alas, copper-bottomed nonsense.

The press release issued yesterday by the Truss campaign announcing the policy makes it crystal clear that replacing national pay bargaining with “regional pay boards” would mean smaller salaries for those in less-affluent areas.

It said: “This will make it easier to adjust officials’ pay, ensuring it accurately reflects where they work and stops the crowding out of local businesses that can not compete with public sector pay.”

And in case anyone was in any doubt that this new policy would apply to the likes of nurses, teachers and the police as well, the release explained: “This could save up to £8.8 billion per year. This is the potential savings if the system were to be adopted for all public sector workers in the long term.”

Unsurprisingly, this went down badly with Red Wall Tories like Ben Houchen, the party’s mayor in Tees Valley, who said: “There is simply no way you can do this without a massive pay cut for 5.5m people including nurses, police officers and our armed forces outside London.”

Experiencing the first serious mis-step of her leadership campaign, Truss later recorded a TV clip insisting that while her policy had been “misrepresented”, she was going to abandon it completely.

She said: “I never had any intention of changing the terms and conditions of teachers and nurses.

“But what I want to be clear about is I will not be going ahead with the regional pay boards. That is no longer my policy.”

Rishi Sunak’s campaign, who have been on the back foot throughout the contest, wasted no time in taking advantage of their rival’s humiliation.

Pointing out that Truss had supported regional pay boards four years ago when she was chief secretary to the Treasury (CST), a source on Team Rishi said: “This wasn’t a mistake, Liz wanted this in 2018 as CST. The lady is for turning.”

That last sentence, echoing a famous line in one of Margaret Thatcher’s party conference speeches, was designed to twist the knife.

It’s far too early to say Truss’s mistake means the outcome of the leadership contest is back in the balance. She remains the clear favourite to succeed Boris Johnson.

But she’ll know better than anyone that any further slip-ups could be fatal to her hopes of entering Number 10.

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Ministers Condemn Nadine Dorries Over ‘Dangerous And Distasteful’ Rishi Sunak Attacks

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Ministers have called on Liz Truss to “disown” attacks on Rishi Sunak by Nadine Dorries.

The culture secretary, a supporter of Truss’s leadership bid, mounted a fresh attack as she made a half-hearted apology for previous comments about his expensive clothes.

She also shared a doctored image on Twitter showing Rishi Sunak stabbing Boris Johnson in the back.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, she described Sunak as an “assassin” for helping to bring down Boris Johnson, and a “dog in the manger” for not supporting the prime minister enough when he was chancellor.

She said she “may have gone over the top” when she criticised Sunak for wearing £450 Prada shoes and a £3,500 bespoke suit.

“I wanted to highlight Rishi’s misguided sartorial style in order to alert Tory members not to be taken in by appearances in the way that happened to many of us who served with the chancellor in cabinet,” she said.

“The assassin’s gleaming smile, his gentle voice and even his diminutive stature had many of us well and truly fooled.”

She later retweeted an image showing Sunak as Brutus stabbing Johnson as Julius Caesar in the back.

Business minister Greg Hands condemned Dorries’ actions as “distasteful” and “dangerous” in the wake of the killing of Southend West Tory MP Sir David Amess at a constituency surgery in Essex last October.

The MP, who is supporting Sunak’s campaign, told Sky News: “I’m sure Liz Truss would disown this kind of behaviour.

“I think this is appalling.

“Look, it’s not even a year since the stabbing of Sir David Amess at his Southend constituency surgery, so I think this is very, very bad taste, dangerous even”.

Welsh secretary Sir Robert Buckland, another Sunak supporter, also denounced Dorries’ behaviour.

“I think that sort of imagery and narrative is not just incendiary, it’s wrong,” he told BBC Radio Wales.

“I think it’s time for those who think that an argument about Prada shoes or earrings is more important, for instance, should wind their neck in and let people talk about the issues rather than the personality”.

Former Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis, who has announced he is supporting Truss, told Sky News: “It’s certainly not the sort of thing I would tweet.”

He added: “Nadine is well known as having strong views on things. Nadine speaks for herself, she’s very much an individual on that. But that is not a position that Liz would take”.

Liz Truss’s campaign have been contacted for comment.

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Liz Truss Pledges To Strike Rwanda-Style Deportation Deals With Other Countries

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Liz Truss has vowed to deport more migrants if she is elected prime minister.

The foreign secretary said she would strike more Rwanda-style deportation deals in a bid to halt small boats bringing illegal immigrants from France.

Truss, who is battling it out against Rishi Sunak for Boris Johnson’s job, also vowed to bolster Border Force staff by 20 per cent in a bid to deter people from crossing the Channel.

The pledges come as the leadership rivals struck a hard-line tone on immigration in a bid to win over Tory party members, who will pick their favourite for PM, with the result announced on September 5.

Sunak said he would give MPs control over who comes to the UK by creating an annual cap on the number of refugees accepted each year.

Both candidates have backed Priti Patel’s controversial policy of sending migrants to Rwanda, with Truss saying she would extend it to other countries.

Truss said: “We need to break the cycle of these appalling gangs and stop people taking dangerous journeys across the channel.

“As prime minister, I am determined to see the Rwanda policy through to full implementation as well as exploring other countries where we can work on similar partnerships.

“I’ll make sure we have the right levels of force and protection at our borders. I will not cower to the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights] and its continued efforts to try and control immigration policy.”

Sunak said he will do “whatever it takes” to make the Rwanda scheme work, arguing that the UK’s current immigration system is “broken” and “chaotic”.

Also included in Truss’s policy pitch are plans to double Border Force Maritime staffing levels so that more Channel patrols can take place, as well as appointing a new Home Office minister to oversee the Border Force.

A source close to Truss said: “As foreign secretary, Liz worked closely with Priti Patel to formulate the generation-defining Rwanda policy.

“As prime minister she will do whatever it takes to protect our borders. She’s been frustrated with the ECHR and its mission creep. She is prepared to take a tougher stance and deliver the reforms required so the ECHR works for Britain.”

Sunak sought to match Truss on immigration with a 10-point plan that includes a commitment to a more narrow definition of who qualifies for asylum compared with that offered by the ECHR.

The plan will also give the government enhanced powers to detail, tag and monitor illegal migrants.

Sunak said: “Our immigration system is broken and we have to be honest about that. Whether you believe that migration should be high or low, we can all agree that it should be legal and controlled.

“Right now the system is chaotic, with law-abiding citizens seeing boats full of illegal immigrants coming from the safe country of France with our sailors and coastguards seemingly powerless to stop them.

“It must stop, and if I am prime minister I will stop it.”

Sunak said he would immediately work with French president Emmanuel Macron to find a solution to small boat crossings, including through a new cross-government taskforce.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Sunak said: “The ECHR cannot inhibit our ability to properly control our borders and we shouldn’t let it. We need to inject a healthy dose of common sense into the system, and that is what my plan does.”

Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper criticised the pair’s plans and said it risked wasting £120m of taxpayer money if it is ruled unlawful by courts.

The first deportation flight was grounded in June after a series of legal challenges were lodged, with more expected to be filed in due course.

Cooper said: “The Conservatives have been in power for 12 years. It beggars belief that they claim to be the ones to sort things out when they have both failed for so long.”

The shift on to immigration comes after Sunak and Truss repeatedly clashed over economic policy.

Truss has vowed to cut taxes “from day one” if she replaces Johnson and has said she would immediately scrap Sunak’s increase in national insurance, which she argued was strangling growth and hitting families already hard-pressed by the cost of living crisis.

Sunak retaliated by branding her tax-cutting plans as “immoral” and a “fairytale”. He said he will only cut tax when inflation — currently running at 9.4 per cent — was under control.

Over the next six weeks, Truss and Sunak will take part in a number of hustings across the country in a bid to woo Tory party members.

Polling from YouGov last week gave Truss a 24-point lead over Sunak among Tory party members.

However, new polling from Opinium put Sunak slightly ahead of his rival among all voters on the question of who would make the better prime minister.

Forty-three per cent of the 2,000 adults surveyed said Sunak would make a good prime minister, compared with 36 per cent for Truss.

The two will go head-to-head in a televised BBC debate on Monday, with The Sun and Talk TV staging another on Tuesday.

Sky News will then host another debate on August 4.

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Rishi Sunak Says Liz Truss’s Plans To Cut Taxes Immediately Are ‘Immoral’

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Liz Truss’s plans to cut taxes immediately if she becomes prime minister are “immoral”, Rishi Sunak has said.

In a major ramping up of his attacks on his Tory leadership rival, the former chancellor said the move would require the government to borrow “tens and tens and tens of billions of pounds”, which would have to be repaid by future generations.

He also said he was the “underdog” in the contest and said the “forces that be” want Truss to win.

Sunak made his comments while addressing supporters in Grantham, the birthplace of Margaret Thatcher.

Truss has pledged to reverse the rise in national insurance payments and halt the planned increase in corporation tax – policies introduced by Sunak when he was chancellor.

She has insisted that the £30bn cost of the policies can he paid for from the fiscal “headroom” in the economy.

But Sunak said: “I do believe that it is the wrong approach for the government at this moment to be borrowing an extra tens and tens and tens of billions of pounds at a time when inflation is rising to almost double digits and interest rates are already on the rise.”

He added: “Not only do I think it’s the wrong thing for the economy, I do also believe that it’s immoral because there is nothing noble or good about wracking up bills on the country’s credit card that we then pass on to our children and grandchildren.”

Suggesting that Truss was misleading voters, the former chancellor said: “We can cut more taxes, but only if we defeat the enemy of inflation and that can only happen if we are honest about the ravages it causes.

“We must see the danger in front of us and act – not pretend like it isn’t happening or, more dreadful still, make the situation worse, putting people’s homes and savings at risk.

“I will deliver a lower tax economy, I will deliver tax cuts, but tax cuts you can believe in. I will make that happen.”

The most recent opinion poll of Tory party members – who will decide who succeeds Boris Johnson – suggested Truss is 24 points ahead of her rival.

Sunak said: “Be in no doubt, I am the underdog. The forces that be want this to be a coronation for the other candidate.”

Responding to his comments, a spokesperson for Truss said: “Liz‘s plans for tax cuts will reward people for their hard work and effort, allowing them to keep more of their hard-earned money.

“You cannot tax your way to growth. We have the highest tax burden since the 1940s and as prime minister Liz will take immediate action to prioritise growth and cut taxes.

“We can’t continue with a business-as-usual approach on the economy that is failing to deliver for the British people.”

Chief secretary to the Treasury Simon Clarke, who used to work under Sunak when he was chancellor, also hit out at his former boss, accusing him on Twitter of engaging in “project fear”.

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Liz Truss’s Economic Guru Says Her Tax Plans Will Send Interest Rates Soaring

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Liz Truss’s plans to cut taxes would lead to interest rates rising to up to seven per cent, according to her economic guru.

Professor Patrick Minford said higher rates – which would send monthly mortgage repayments soaring – were “a good thing” for the economy.

At the moment, the Bank of England interest rate is 1.25 per cent.

Earlier this week, Truss said Minford supported her plans to reverse the increase in national insurance and halt a planned rise in corporation tax, despite warnings they could lead to higher inflation.

Former chancellor Rishi Sunak, Truss’s rival for the Tory leadership, has insisted that taxes should only come down once inflation is under control.

But in an interview with The Times, Minford said: “If we raise corporation tax we’ll kill off growth.

“It’s crazy to try to begin getting the debt-to-GDP ratio down five minutes after Covid. Borrowing is actually something that allows you to pursue the right policies and not be blown off course by temporary shocks.”

On warnings that tax cuts will lead to higher interest rates to bring down inflation, he said: “Yes, interest rates have to go up and it’s a good thing.

“A normal level is more like 5-7 per cent and I don’t think it will be any bad thing if we got back to that level.”

Minford added: “If you’ve got incredibly low interest rates you kill off savings and create febrile markets with a lot of zombie companies surviving because it costs them nothing to borrow.

“It’s right that a healthy economy should have a decent interest rate. That’s certainly one thing I want to see.”

A Truss campaign source told The Times: “Patrick Minford has no formal involvement in Liz’s campaign.

“Liz’s absolute priority is tackling the cost of living and getting our economy growing faster. We can’t have business-as-usual economic policy.”

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Kemi Badenoch Becomes Latest Candidate To Exit The Tory Leadership Race

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Kemi Badenoch has been knocked out of the race to succeed Boris Johnson as Tory leader and prime minister.

The former frontbencher received the fewest votes of the four remaining candidates in the contest.

Rishi Sunak once again came out on top, with Penny Mordaunt retaining second place and Liz Truss staying in third spot.

Badenoch won the backing of 59 MPs, up just one from the last round.

Truss got 86, up 15 on the third ballot, Mordaunt was up 10 votes to 92, with Sunak up three to 118.

The fifth and final ballot of MPs will take place tomorrow.

The two candidates receiving the highest number of votes will go into the final run-off, with the winner being decided by the 200,000 Tory members and announced on September 5.

A spokesperson for Sunak’s campaign said: “Rishi has continued to progress today because he is the candidate with the clearest plan to restore trust, rebuild the economy, reunite the country and because he is best placed to beat Labour at the next election.

“Every poll shows only Rishi can beat Starmer, and is the candidate the public think would make the best PM.

“MPs are also recognizing that Rishi has the best experience and plans to deal with the current economic situation.

“Rishi will rebuild our economy by gripping inflation, so we can get our economy growing and unleash the full opportunities of post-Brexit Britain.”

Mordaunt said: “This afternoon colleagues once again put their trust in me and I cannot thank them enough. We are so nearly across the finish line. I am raring to go and excited to put my case to members across the country and win.

“I want to pay tribute to my friend Kemi Badenoch who electrified the leadership contest with her fresh thinking and bold policies.

“She and I both know that the old way of government isn’t working as it should. Voters want change and we owe it to them to offer a bold new vision for this country. Kemi’s passion for this showed and I’m glad she put herself forward to be heard.”

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Rishi Sunak’s Smooth PM Campaign Praised For Being Slick Makes An Obvious Slip-Up

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Rishi Sunak’s bid to the prime minister has been recognised for being particularly slick throughout his campaign – up until today.

The former chancellor has come out on top of both Conservative leadership ballots this week, and seems to be the frontrunner – at least among MPs – to take Boris Johnson’s place in No.10.

So it was particularly surprising that during a leadership hustings hosted by Conservative Home on Friday, a large spelling error on one of his campaign signs was visible.

Below a giant QR code was the caption: “Scan me to join the campiaign [sic].”

A close-up of the screen behind Sunak during his ConHome interview
A close-up of the screen behind Sunak during his ConHome interview

It’s especially surprising as Sunak’s campaign has been so glossy since its launch, unlike his main competitor Penny Mordaunt, who had complaints about her launch video.

Sunak has even been accused of registering his official website Ready4Rishi.com back in December, although it was actually registered on July 6 according to public records. That’s the day after he quit as chancellor and the day before Johnson resigned.

Actually, a different web address was registered six months ago – Readyforrishi.com, which was snapped up on December 23, although Sunak’s team claim they were not responsible for that, according to The Guardian. This URL now redirects to Sunak’s official Ready4Rishi.com page.

Spelling mistakes aside, Sunak’s chances of winning the top job seemed to decrease after a YouGov poll found he was not the most popular candidate among the wider members of the Conservative Party.

Just 13% of the 879 members surveyed backed Sunak – meaning he was tied in third place with foreign secretary Liz Truss – compared to 27% who supported his opponent Mordaunt.

This comes despite Sunak being the second person to resign from Johnson’s cabinet last week, triggering a mass Tory exodus from his government which ultimately forced the prime minister to resign on Thursday.

Sunak has also faced criticism over his wife’s non-dom status (which did allow her to avoid paying taxes on overseas income) earlier this year, until she gave it up and started paying UK taxes.

When challenged over his multi-millionaire status on Thursday, Sunak also told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme on Thursday that he was not too rich to become prime minister.

“I don’t judge people by their bank accounts, I judge them by their character and I think people can judge me by my actions over the past couple of years,” he claimed.

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Tories Accused Of Squandering ‘Astronomical’ Amounts Of Taxpayer Money

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The Tory government has been accused of “astronomical” waste as it emerged that £15bn worth of taxpayers’ money has been lost on faulty PPE and servicing government debt.

The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) is under fire after it was revealed that £4bn worth of unusable personal protective equipment (PPE) left over from the Covid-19 pandemic will be burned “to generate power”.

A report by parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) claimed that DHSC lost 75 per cent of the £12bn it spent on PPE in the first year of the pandemic due to inflated prices and kit that did not meet the required standards — including £4bn going to waste.

A DHSC spokesperson said a number of claims in the PAC report were “misleading” and that they made “no apology for procuring too much PPE rather than too little”.

“The story of PPE purchasing is perhaps the most shameful episode in the UK Government response to the pandemic.”

– Dame Meg Hillier

Meanwhile, chancellor Rishi Sunak also stands accused of losing £11bn of taxpayers’ money by paying too much interest on UK debt, according to the Financial Times.

The losses were said to exceed the amount that the Conservatives have accused Labour former chancellor Gordon Brown of losing when he sold some of the UK’s gold reserves at rock bottom prices.

It comes as people struggle with the mounting cost of living crisis which has seen the average cost of filling up a typical family car reach the £100 mark for the first time.

Labour’s Meg Hillier MP, chair of the PAC, said the purchasing of PPE was “perhaps the most shameful episode the UK government response to the pandemic”.

“At the start of the pandemic health service and social care staff were left to risk their own and their families’ lives due to the lack of basic PPE,” she said.

“In a desperate bid to catch up the government splurged huge amounts of money, paying obscenely inflated prices and payments to middlemen in a chaotic rush during which they chucked out even the most cursory due diligence.

“This has left us with massive public contracts now under investigation by the National Crime Agency or in dispute because of allegations of modern slavery in the supply chain.

“Add to that a series of inappropriate, unauthorised severance payoffs made by clinical commissioning groups in the first year of the pandemic and the impression given falls even further from what we expect.

“DHSC singularly failed to manage this crisis, despite years of clear and known risk of a pandemic, and the challenges facing it now are vast, from getting the NHS back on its feet to preparing for the next major crisis. There are frankly too few signs that it is putting its house in order or knows how to.”

In the FT article, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) attributed the £11bn loss to the chancellor’s failure to insure against interest rate rises.

NIESR’s Professor Jagjit Chadha told the Financial Times Sunak had left the country with “an enormous bill and heavy continuing exposure to interest rate risk”.

In response, Tulip Siddiq, Labour’s shadow economic secretary to the Treasury, accused the chancellor of “severe wastefulness”.

“These are astronomical sums for the chancellor to lose, and leaves working people picking up the cheque for his severe wastefulness while he hikes their taxes in the middle of a cost of living crisis,” she said.

“This government has played fast and loose with taxpayers’ money, failing to recover money lost to fraud and handing covid contracts to their friends.

“Britain deserves a government that respects public money and delivers for people across the country.”

A DHSC spokesperson said: “A number of these claims are misleading, including the claims that we are burning £4bn of unusable PPE and that there is no clear disposal strategy for excess PPE.

“In the face of an unpredictable and dangerous virus, we make no apology for procuring too much PPE rather than too little, and only 3 per cent of the PPE we procured was unusable in any context.

“At the height of the pandemic, there was unprecedented global demand for and massive inflation in prices of PPE. But despite these global challenges, we delivered over 19.8 billion items of PPE to frontline staff to keep them safe.

“Now we are confident we have sufficient PPE to cover any future Covid demands, we are taking decisive action and have reduced storage costs by 82 per cent since October 2020.”

A HM Treasury spokesperson said: “Proposals such as this risk undermining the independence of the Bank of England and forcing commercial banks to swap reserves for gilts would be an act of financial repression. This would be hugely damaging to the credibility of the UK’s macroeconomic framework and weaken the wider economy.

“The £11bn figure is based on the implausible assumption that it would be possible to undertake action of this scale in a single transaction.”

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