Reeves defends taking free Sabrina Carpenter tickets

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has defended accepting free tickets to a Sabrina Carpenter concert, adding she will declare them.

Speaking on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Reeves said she attended the concert a couple of weeks ago with a family member.

"I do now have security which means it's not as easy as it would have been in the past to just sit in a concert," she said.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer tightened rules on ministers accepting gifts and hospitality in November after he and a number of cabinet ministers faced criticism over donations.

The chancellor said she attended the concert a couple of weeks ago with a family member.

Sir Keir paid back more than £6,000 worth of his own gifts and hospitality that he had received since becoming prime minister after the backlash. The figure included the cost of six Taylor Swift tickets.

Nonetheless, the prime minister did defend his acceptance of corporate hospitality from the Arsenal football club in September – citing security as his reason for doing so.

The Premier League football club made two seats available for Sir Keir in the corporate area of the Emirates Stadium.

The prime minister explained at the time he had been advised that necessary security costs for him to sit in the stands would cost the taxpayer more.

The new rules introduced last year did not ban ministers from accepting donations but do now require them to consider the "need to maintain the public's confidence".

Reeves was asked by Kuenssberg why she did not pay for the tickets. The chancellor responded that they were not tickets you could pay for.

"There wasn't a price to those tickets," she said, as she underlined she would declare the value of them.

Her confirmation follows reporting from a number of media outlets on the story earlier this week.

In September 2024, the chancellor said she would not accept clothing donations while in her current role after it emerged that she had accepted such donations while in opposition.

She had been one of a number of Labour politicians who faced questions after accepting thousands of pounds worth of clothes as gifts before the election.

Reeves previously told the BBC that accepting donations to pay for clothes was not something she had planned to do as a government minister.

As a government minister, Reeves would receive a salary as an MP which was £91,346 as of April 2024, as well as an additional sum for being a minister.

The salary for the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the financial year 2022/23 was £67,505.

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride was also quizzed about gifts on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg with respect to ski passes and Bafta tickets accepted by shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith.

Griffith's registered interests, which are detailed on Parliament's website, include a declaration of two tickets with hospitality to the 2025 British Academy Film Awards (Bafta) estimated to be worth £4,000.

The shadow business secretary has also declared discounted ski-passes and guiding for two worth £973 for a trip to Switzerland in January.

Stride said on Sunday that he does not know the specific details.

Speaking of both Griffith and Reeves, Stride said: "I think it's for them to justify what they do."

In a statement to the BBC, Griffith said: "Clearly my attacks on Labour's devastating impact on business have got under someone's skin."

He added that he "diligently" registers hospitality he receives and did so for the two cited instances.

"The Baftas are a celebration of the creative sector - one of the UK's largest exporters - and were also attended by Labour ministers," he said.

"It might be more of a story had the shadow business and trade secretary not attended."

Regarding the ski passes for the Parliamentary Ski Trip, he said it was a "long standing and cross-party event" as he underlined that he personally covered the costs of flights and accommodation.

"It does include social events with Swiss parliamentarians, and these are the elements which were properly disclosed on my register of interests," Griffith added.