Rachel Reeves has defended accepting thousands of pounds of clothing donations. The Chancellor received £7,500 for clothing from her friend Juliet Rosenfeld since the start of last year.
The donations were declared, but the Chancellor did not explicitly say the money was spent on clothing. Her team believes the declarations were in line with the rules, because the donations were in the form of money and were not direct gifts of clothing.
Reeves has since said she will not accept clothing donations now that she is in government. It comes after Keir Starmer has been criticised for receiving £100,000 worth of gifts and tickets since he became Labour leader.
Reeves said she understands why people find it “odd” that politicians are given donations for things such as clothes. She told Times Radio: “Juliet and me have been friends for a long time, and she said to me about a year-and-a-half ago ‘I want to help you in the election campaign and the thing I’d really like to do is make sure that for big events and for the campaign trail, you’re smart and well turned out’.
“I really appreciated that, she’s made a big difference to me. That’s not something that I’m going to do in government.” She added: “I can understand that to a lot of people it looks a bit odd. I get that.”
The Chancellor said she has bought the suit she will be wearing for her conference speech at Liverpool on Monday. When asked about her outfit for the speech, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I bought it and I will be wearing it for my conference speech this afternoon.”
The Chancellor said she “declared all of those donations in the proper way” and added: “It’s never something that I planned to do as a government minister, but it did help me in opposition”.
Reeves insisted the row over senior Labour figures’ acceptance of “freebies” was because they had been transparent about the donations. She told Times Radio: “The really important thing is that we’re always transparent. These are not things we’re going to do in government, but everything was declared.”
Asked whether tickets to pop concerts and football matches would still be accepted, she said: “As long as things are declared properly, so people can see if there’s any conflict of interest, I think it’s fine to go to the football and to go to a pop concert. I don’t begrudge people doing that.”
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