65% of Rishi Sunak’s new cabinet went to private school

The four great offices of state are all held by private school pupils (Picture: Getty/Metro.co.uk)

Rishi Sunak’s new cabinet is stacked with MPs who went to fee-paying schools, a new analysis has revealed.

Some 65% of his top team, including the prime minister himself, went to private school, according to The Sutton Trust.

That compares to around 7% of the public – almost ten times less.

The cabinet also faces question marks about gender, as well as class.

Among the cabinet ministers who attended independent schools are Sunak, who went to Winchester College, and his three most senior colleagues: chancellor Jeremy Hunt, at Charterhouse School in Surrey, foreign secretary James Cleverly, at Colfe’s School in Greenwich, and home secretary Suella Braverman, at Heathfield School in Pinner, north-west London.

The analysis by the social mobility charity also suggests nearly a quarter (23%) of Sunak’s cabinet went to a comprehensive school, while one in 10 attended a grammar school.

The PM has continued a trend set by his predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, who also filled a majority of Cabinet positions with private school pupils.

The proportion is slightly below Truss’s cabinet, on 68%, and just above Johnson’s first cabinet, which had 64%, but much higher than the level in Theresa May’s 2016 cabinet, which boasted just 30%.

Sunak’s cabinet is largely made up of privately-educated men (Picture: AP)

Sunak, together with his wife, is worth hundreds of millions of pounds and has donated more than £100,000 to his old school – leading to questions about whether he will govern in the interests of ordinary people.

Half of David Cameron’s 2015 cabinet went to independent schools – less than the 62% in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010 but well above the 32% in Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s cabinets,

Among those who went to a comprehensive are the leader of the Commons, the defeated leadership candidate Penny Mordaunt, transport secretary Mark Harper and – perhaps symbolically – the new education secretary Gillian Keegan.

Sir Peter Lampl, the Sutton Trust’s founder and chairman, said: ‘Rishi Sunak faces unprecedented challenges as he enters Number 10.

‘In his new Cabinet, 65% went to private schools – over nine times the number in the general population – and 45% went to Oxbridge, more than double the average for all MPs.

‘While his Cabinet is marginally more representative than Truss’s, Tuesday’s appointments highlight how unevenly spread opportunities to enter the most prestigious positions continue to be.

exclusive

Rishi licked lips during ‘hollow’ PM speech in ‘self-reassurance’ gesture

‘Making the most of Britain’s talent regardless of background must be a priority.’

Sunak has faced a number of questions about the make-up of his new cabinet, including the reappointment of Suella Braverman as home secretary days after she was forced to resign over a security breach.

Elsewhere, just 22% of those attending cabinet are women.

But Sunak himself is the first British Asian and the first Hindu to lead the UK – as well as being the youngest ever PM in modern history.

He continues the tradition of nearly every UK prime minister since the Second World War to have studied at Oxford University.

The one exception is Gordon Brown, who went to Edinburgh.

Got a story? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected]. Or you can submit your videos and pictures here.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Follow Metro.co.uk on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news updates. You can now also get Metro.co.uk articles sent straight to your device. Sign up for our daily push alerts here.

MORE : Rishi Sunak’s new cabinet meets for the first time after reshuffle

That’s almost ten times more than the general public.