Rachel Reeves provides verdict on MPs pay after row over donor money for garments
Rachel Reeves has been confronted over MPs salaries after it emerged she and other Cabinet ministers received donor cash to buy clothes.
The Chancellor was asked whether she thinks Members of Parliament – who are paid £91,346, a year – are paid enough after a row over Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and herself being gifted thousands of pounds to buy new new outfits. She admitted she is “certainly not” going to start pitching for MPs to get paid more when she
No10 sources last week confirmed that the PM, the Deputy PM Ms Reeves will now refuse gifts of this kind. They received huge backlash after it emerged they’d accepted freebies amid criticism of plans to slash Winter Fuel Payments for millions of pensioners.
Asked if MPs are paid enough, Ms Reeves told Sky News: “I think at a time when we’re asking people to make sacrifices and when difficult choices are having to be made, I’m certainly not arguing for higher salaries of politicians.” She insisted political campaigns rely on donations to pay for things including materials that are distributed through people’s letter boxes, digital campaigns, and billboards ads.
She continued: “All that requires donations. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund political campaigns, but donations do. We’re grateful for the support that we’ve had to run the campaign that we did, which now gives us this chance to change our country. And the fact that Labour received more donations than we ever have in our past, I think, reflects the support people right across the scale, from small donations from our members and supporters, from big donations from people who have been very successful in life. We appreciate those donations. It helps us to do our job of getting elected and making the change that our country desperately needs.”
The PM has been dogged by criticism for accepting thousands of pounds worth of clothes and glasses for himself and his wife Victoria from Labour donor Lord Alli. MPs are required to declare gifts within 28 days but a late declaration was made regarding outfits for Lady Starmer after No10 sought new advice.
Ms Rayner has accepted four donations from Lord Alli over the past year, including £8,500 last October, £8,250 in March and £900 in April to “support me in my capacity as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party“. It is understood that this money was partly used to buy work clothes for major events.
Ms Reeves also accepted nearly £7,500 from a donor called Juliet Rosenfeld from January 2023 to May 2024, which were registered as cash “to support the Shadow Chancellor’s office” and was put towards buying outfits. Her team has been informed that the gifts were properly declared, the Mirror was told.
Speaking on Times Radio on Monday, Ms Reeves said she and Ms Rosenfield have been friends for a long time and that she wanted to donate to her campaign and make sure she looked “smart and well turned out” for big events. The Chancellor admitted it looked a “bit odd” to accept such gifts, adding: “This is something that we did during the election campaign to get ready for government.
“It’s not something that I’m going to do in government. I can understand that to a lot of people it looks a bit odd. I get that. It’s not something we’re going to do in government. But I do appreciate the support I’ve had from a number of donors to help me with research, with speech writing and also the support that Juliet gave me.”
