Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner have all announced that they will no longer accept donations of free clothes.
Downing Street confirmed the move just hours before the party’s top brass convene in Liverpool for its annual conference.
Angela Rayner, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves will no longer accept clothes donations (Image: Getty)
It comes after a scandal hit senior figures in the Labour Party this week as it was revealed the PM has accepted the most donations out of any Member of Parliament in recent years.
According to a league table put together by Sky News, Sir Keir has received two-and-a-half times more in gifts and hospitality than the next highest MP, accepting £107,145 worth of gifts, benefits, and hospitality since December 2019.
The freebies were listed in Parliament’s register of MPs’ interests in line with Commons rules. The Premier League has given Sir Keir almost £40,000 in football tickets, and is one of the largest providers of hospitality to the Labour leader.
He declared £12,588 in gifts ranging from four Taylor Swift tickets worth £4,000 during the election campaign, to Euros final tickets valued at £1,628, and several Arsenal match tickets exceeding £6,000 in total.
The row began over the weekend after it was revealed Labour peer Waheed Alli gave the Labour premier large sums for his work wardrobe, including £2,435 worth of glasses and £16,200 worth of work clothing.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner also has accepted clothing donations, to the value of £2,230, Sky News reports.
Meanwhile, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, received a total of £7,500 from a donor called Juliet Rosenfeld from January 2023 to May 2024 that was used to pay for clothing, people with knowledge of the gifts claimed, the Financial Times reports.
It is understood that they were registered as donations “to support the shadow chancellor’s office”.
Sir Keir Starmer said security concerns meant not accepting Arsenal hospitality would have cost taxpayers a ‘fortune’ (Image: Getty)
But the Prime Minister has continued to insist it was his right to accept “hospitality” to watch Arsenal, as security concerns mean he can’t watch in his normal seat at the Emirates Stadium.
“If I don’t accept hospitality, I can’t go to the game,” Sir Keir said earlier this week. “You could say: ‘Well, bad luck.’ That’s why gifts have to be registered. But never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”
Sir Keir has even faced critcism from within his own party, with Baroness Harriet Harman saying last night that the Labour leader’s “doubling down” on the clothing row was making it “worse”.
Harman, who sits in the House of Lords, stressed that it was not a “hanging offence”, but suggested the PM should be open about having made a “misstep”.
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Shocking new figures reveal 1.2m pensioners in poverty will be hit by fuel cuts
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is facing fury over winter fuel cuts (Image: PA)
Labour’s heartless decision to axe winter fuel payments will leave pensioners begging in shopping centres, campaigners have warned.
Ministers have admitted 86% of older people already living in poverty will lose their cold weather payments this winter.
The revelations have prompted widespread fury, with the Government accused of knowing it will leave those in dire need in a worse state.
Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, told the Daily Express: “These statistics reveal the extent of heartlessness towards older people shown so far by the Labour Government.
The Daily Express has received countless letters on the winter fuel cut (Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
“Despite knowing that 1.4million pensioners are already in absolute poverty, the Government is sticking to its plan to remove the winter fuel payment from 1.2million of them.
“If you are in absolute poverty and £200-300 is removed from you at short notice, you have only three choices: malnutrition, hypothermia or begging.
“And many older people are already using food banks, warm banks and local authority hardship funds.
“Will the Chancellor be satisfied that she has saved the economy when 80-year-olds are begging in our shopping malls?”
Emma Reynolds, from the Department for Work and Pensions, told Conservative Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride that 1.4million older people are living in absolute poverty.
And just 200,000 are receiving pension credit, Ms Reynolds has admitted.
This means 86% – 1.2million people – will be worse off.
Mr Stride told the Daily Express: “We now know the vast majority of pensioners in poverty will see their winter fuel payment snatched from them this winter.
“No wonder Labour ministers were so reluctant to answer basic questions about the impact of this policy.
“They have tried to claim those who really need support will still get it – they knew that was not true.
“They should have provided all of this information upfront before Parliament debated this and before recess, but instead we had to force it out of them.
“It’s now clear why they rushed this measure through so hastily – they knew it would not stand up to scrutiny.”
Simon Francis, co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: “Every day we are hit by more revelations about the suffering that is being inflicted on older people by Rachel Reeves’ cut to the winter fuel payments.
“There is no one who can’t see the problems associated with this policy apart from the Chancellor.
“Ministers have tried to reassure the public that those who are in most need will still get the help they need, but that’s just not true.
“Last week, we learned that hundreds of thousands of disabled pensioners will miss out, now we find out that those in the direst of financial conditions will also be hit by the cut.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has insisted axing winter fuel payments will save £1.5billion.
This will help plug a £22billion black hole, Ms Reeves has argued.
Only retirees who receive pension credit or other means-tested benefits will receive payments this year.
The Express crusade to save the payment has been supported by MPs from across the House of Commons.
About 780,000 pensioners who need the winter fuel payment will lose out on it when Labour begins means-testing the benefit, according to the Government’s own equality analysis.
Meanwhile an estimated 71% of the 1.6million disabled people who received winter fuel payments will be hit, documents snuck out last Friday evening revealed.
But Ms Reeves was yesterday urged to utilise a £10billion budget boost to reverse plans to cut winter fuel payments.
The Chancellor’s room for manoeuvre has been increased by a Bank of England decision to slow the pace of its quantitative tightening programme, reducing losses to the Treasury from bond sales.
Labour MP Rachel Maskell added: “With the additional fiscal headroom identified, it is so important that a small proportion is used on a delay to the winter fuel payments to protect those who are fuel poor this winter. Older people should not be cold this winter, or ever.”
Ms Reeves is considering increases to capital gains tax and inheritance tax while eyeing some pensions tax breaks. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer refused again to rule out scrapping the single person’s council tax discount, even while saying he did not want to put “the fear of God” into people living alone.
But the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned Ms Reeves could stifle economic growth if she imposes too many tax hikes.
Isaac Delestre, research economist at the IFS, said: “With large swathes of the tax system seemingly off-limits due to Labour’s manifesto commitments, the Chancellor is going into this year’s Budget with one hand tied behind her back.
“There will be a temptation to increase revenues in ways that would be economically damaging.
“Stamp duty deserves a special mention as a tax that should not be increased.
“But Rachel Reeves also has the power to fix some of the more glaring deficiencies of our tax system: taxes on pensions, capital gains and inheritances (to name just three) are all crying out for reform.
“If she takes the opportunity to improve taxes, as well as increase them, she could be rewarded not only with more revenue but also with a tax system that is fairer and less of an impediment to growth.”
A Government spokesman said: “We are committed supporting pensioners – with over 12million set to see their state pension rise by £1,700 this parliament through our commitment to the triple lock.
“Given the dire state of the public finances we have inherited, we have had to take difficult decisions. We will continue to support households with many benefiting from the £150 Warm Home Discount.
“And we are extending the Household Support Fund with £421million, to ensure local authorities can support vulnerable people and families.”
