PM will no longer accept donations for clothes

Sir Keir Starmer, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves will not accept any further donations for clothing after a row over gifts, a Downing Street source has said.

The prime minister has faced growing criticism after it emerged he had received more than £16,000 for work clothing and spectacles for him, and further donations for his wife, from Labour peer Waheed Alli.

The Financial Times has reported that Rayner and Reeves declared thousands of pounds in work clothing from wealthy donors as general office support.

The prime minister has maintained he has always followed the rules on donations.

Labour is trying to draw a line under the controversy as the party heads to Liverpool for its first annual conference since its landslide general election victory in July.

The relationship between the Labour’s leadership and Lord Alli, a wealthy donor made head of party fundraising, has come under renewed scrutiny since it was revealed earlier this week that Sir Keir failed to declare £5,000 in donations for clothing for his wife, Lady Victoria Starmer.

The Conservatives asked Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Daniel Greenberg to investigate why gifts for a personal shopper and clothing alterations were not declared in the MPs' register, but no investigation was launched.

Sir Keir is one of seven cabinet ministers who received donations and gifts from Lord Alli in the lead-up to the general election.

On Friday, the Financial Times reported a £3,550 donation to Rayner by Lord Alli registered as “to support me in my capacity as deputy leader of the Labour party” was for clothing.

In addition, the paper said that Reeves received £7,500 from a donor, Juliet Rosenfeld, in four instalments from January 2023 to May 2024, which it said was used to pay for clothing.

'Safer'

It is not yet clear whether the new policy of not accepting donations for clothes will apply to the prime minister's wife. Lord Alli paid for clothing for her and a personal shopper. It is also not clear whether it will apply to other donations in kind.

The prime minister, a keen Arsenal fan, has also come under pressure for accepting thousands of pounds worth of free football tickets over the last Parliament.

Although he is an Arsenal season ticket holder, Sir Keir told the BBC on Thursday that security concerns meant he could no longer watch games from the stands without security.

In a series of BBC interviews, he said he was "not going to ask the taxpayer to indulge me to be in the stands when I could go and sit somewhere else where the club and the security say it's safer for me to be".

Sir Keir's register of interests shows most of his tickets have been provided by individual football clubs or the Premier League, although investment firm Cain International and Bishop Auckland-based Teescraft Engineering paid for him to attend games against Chelsea and Newcastle respectively.

He is far from the only MP to have received freebies over the past year, with more than 70 current MPs from across the House of Commons listing free tickets to sporting events in their registers of interests.

Tickets have been provided by private donors, corporations, football clubs and sports governing bodies, among others.