Priti Patel is a controversial figure. She was born in London and attended a comprehensive girls school in Watford. Her parents, who are Indian, came to the UK from Uganda in the 1960s. They arrived just before dictator Idi Amin’s mass expulsion of Uganda Asians in 1972, which saw many families flee the country and come to the UK under their status as colonial citizens.
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The Conservative MP has faced a lot of criticism for her right-wing politics. In 2020, Patel was forced to admit that her parents might not have been allowed into the UK under her own immigration rules. However, over the course of her career, which has not been exclusively in politics, Patel has accumulated a large net worth. Let's get into the details.
Priti Patel’s family
Patel’s parents founded a chain of newsagents in London and South East England, and the self-declared Thatcherite has said in interviews that she used to help them in the shops when she was younger - just like her colleague Rishi Sunak who says he helped his mother run her pharmacy. Patel went on to study Sociology and Social Anthropology at Keele University and completed her postgraduate in British Government and Politics at the University of Essex.
Patel is married to Alex Sawyer, a marketing professional, who she met while working in PR. The pair married in 2004 and have a son together. Freddie was born in 2008, and turned 15 this August, but not much is known about him.
Patel keeps her private life far from the media, but she and Sawyer came into the spotlight in 2017 when it surfaced that Patel was paying her husband tens of thousands of pounds to run her office. Sawyer already had two other jobs, and the public were outraged to discover that Patel was using her taxpayer-funded allowance to top up her partner’s bank account.
Priti Patel’s career, salary and net worth
Patel has been the Tory MP for Witham since May 2010, and has held several roles in parliament since then: most recently, she was Secretary of State for the Home Department between from July 2019 to September 2022, and Secretary of State for International Development from July 2016 to November 2017. However, she was forced to resign from this role when it came to light that she had carried out unauthorised meetings with Israeli officials.
Priti Patel's salary
Patel received salaries for these positions, alongside her MP salary which, as of April 2023, is £86,584. Though significant, her earnings as a politician do not make up her whole net worth. According to Express, in 2019 she was the non-executive director of Accloud Plc, a global business and accounting software provider:
She received £45,000 a year for around 20 hours of work a month but resigned when she became Home Secretary.
In July 2019, it was reported that Patel had also been working as a strategic advisor for a global communications company. She had allegedly been working for Viasat since May that year, and the company paid her a whopping £5,000 a month for 5 hours of work.
Priti Patel's net worth
In 2022, Patel’s net worth was estimated to amount to around £2.2 million. This might not seem like much compared to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s wealth, but it certainly places Patel in a very comfortable financial position. Indeed, just the sort of position that makes it easy for these Tories to come under fire for being out-of-touch.
Read more:
⋙ Rishi Sunak has been in office for one year: Here's the salary he earns as Prime Minister
⋙ Sir Keir Starmer has a six-figure salary: Here's how much the Labour leader gets paid
⋙ ‘Staggering irony’: Boris Johnson’s new job has triggered some intense reactions
Sources used:
Independent: Home Secretary Priti Patel admits own parents might not have been allowed into UK under her new immigration laws
The Sun: MEET THE FAMILY Who is Priti Patel’s husband Alex Sawyer and do they have any children?
Express: Priti Patel net worth: How much money does the Home Secretary have?
