Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has indicated that a Conservative government will retain non-domiciled (non-dom) tax status for wealthy foreigners even though the Labour party has raised the issue as a way of attacking Prime Minister Rishi Sunak through his wife Akshata Murty.

Hunt, who was giving a round of interviews on Friday to defend his autumn statement delivered to the Commons on Thursday, was asked about non-doms by the BBC.

The context is Akshata, who has shares in Infosys, given to her by her father N.R. Narayana Murthy, which are worth over £700 million and earn dividends of about £12 million a year. Paying £30,000 a year gives Akshata non-dom tax status in the UK.

This means she does not have to pay tax on her Indian earnings unless they are repatriated to the UK. She continues to pay tax on her UK earnings like everyone else.

However, she has volunteered to pay tax on her Indian earnings but it is not known whether she has also given up her non-dom status. What she has been doing is perfectly legal.

Non-dom tax status was introduced as long ago as 1799 and has been retained by all governments as it was a way of encouraging wealthy foreigners to invest in the UK. It was brought in mainly to help white British people with assets abroad.

Keir Starmer’s Labour party has promised to get rid of it, mainly because it gives the impression that while Rishi, as chancellor, was putting up taxes for ordinary people, his wife was “getting away with it”.

Hunt told the BBC he wanted foreigners to “spend money in Britain” as that supported jobs in the UK.

Questioned on whether he had asked the Treasury to look into how much revenue abolishing the non-dom tax status could bring in for the government, Hunt said he was “constantly” looking at such measures, but tried to “avoid damaging long-term growth”.

He added the Treasury was “unsure” about the real savings that abolishing the nondom tax status would bring and that they did not give a figure at all.

“The Treasury did not tell me it would help the economy to do this,” and such a measure would “damage the long-term attractiveness of the UK”.