• A video has emerged of former Chancellor Rishi Sunak saying that he took public money away from “poor urban areas”.
• He was talking about changes to the Treasury’s rules on investments and the Levelling Up Fund.
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• Labour says it is “scandalous” that he changed the rules to send taxpayer money to wealthy Tory shires.

A clip of former Chancellor Rishi Sunak saying that he took public money away from “poor urban areas” has been made public.

The New Statesman has a video of the Tory leadership candidate telling an audience in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, that he wanted to make sure “areas like this” got the money they deserved.

Allies say he was talking about changing “outdated” rules to better meet the needs of people in towns and rural areas.

Labour said that the Tories’ “true colours” were coming out in the race for leader.

Lisa Nandy, the party’s shadow secretary for levelling up, said, “It’s scandalous that Rishi Sunak is bragging that he changed the rules to send taxpayer money to wealthy Tory shires.”

Ms. Nandy wrote to Greg Clark, who is in charge of Leveling Up, and asked him to “urgently look into” the changes that Mr. Sunak made to funding formulas.

In the video, which was shot on July 29, Mr. Sunak says, “I was able to start changing the funding formulas to make sure that places like this get the money they need.”

“We inherited a bunch of formulas from Labour that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas and that needed to be undone.

“I started the work of undoing that.”

The people who work for Mr. Sunak say that he was talking about changes to the Treasury’s rules on investments and the start of the Levelling Up Fund.

In 2020, the government said that Treasury equations would be changed to give more weight to spending that had a regional impact instead of just figuring out the cost-benefit ratio.

The Treasury said that its old formulas made south-east England and London more attractive places to invest.

Announcing the levelling up fund in November 2020, the government said it would prioritise bids “to drive growth and regeneration in places in need, those facing particular challenges, and areas that have received less government investment in recent years”.

A spokesperson for Mr Sunak said: “Levelling up isn’t just about city centres, it’s also about towns and rural areas all over the country that need help too.”

“Travelling around the country, he’s seen non-metropolitan areas that need better bus services, faster broadband in towns, or high quality schools. That’s what he’ll deliver as prime minister.”

And Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen, who supports Sunak, said on BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme that the clip was taken out of context, adding, “What he was trying to say is why do poor urban areas get much more money than poor rural or town areas?”

He said that places like Devon, Teesside, and some parts of Tunbridge Wells needed more fair money.

But Jake Berry, a Conservative MP who works with Truss, tweeted: “In public Rishi Sunak claims he wants to level up the North, but here, he boasts about trying to funnel vital investment away from deprived areas? He says one thing and does another.”

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