Labour’s conference was supposed to be a moment of triumph, celebrating a return to government after 14 years in opposition and a massive Commons majority that should guarantee the party a decade in power.
Instead, the build-up to the annual get-together in Liverpool has been dominated by rows over cutting the winter fuel allowance, behind-the-scenes briefings and infighting and, most damaging, revelations that the prime minister, chancellor and senior cabinet members had accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of gifts from donors before and after entering government.
What did ministers accept?
Keir Starmer has defended accepting more than £100,000 worth of donated gifts since he became leader of the opposition in 2020 – two and a half times more than any other MP – including football and concert tickets, as well as clothes for him and his wife Victoria.
The London Evening Standard said Starmer has specifically faced “questioning and criticism” for accepting gifts from Waheed Alli, after it emerged the Labour peer had been given a temporary Downing Street security pass despite having no formal government role.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves accepted £7,500 of clothing donations from a widow of a former Labour donor. While denying any wrongdoing or conflict of interest, she acknowledged that voters might “find it a little bit odd that politicians get support for things like buying clothes”.
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, told Sky News that “all MPs take gifts and donations in kind. That’s the system we have in the UK. The important thing is that we are really transparent about the way in which that happens.”
What can MPs accept and what can’t they?
The ministerial code, which details the conduct expected of government ministers, says that “no Minister should accept gifts, hospitality or services from anyone which would, or might appear to, place him or her under an obligation”. It then adds that the “same principle applies if gifts etc are offered to a member of their family”.
If a gift or invitation is given to a minister “in their Ministerial capacity” then that gift becomes government property and need not be declared in the Register of Members’ Interests. A gift up to the value of £140 can be kept by the minister; more expensive gifts should be handed over to their department.
Any gifts received in their capacity as a constituency MP or simply a member of a political party “fall within the rules relating to the Registers of Members’ and Lords’ Interests”.
Lobbyists insist they are “not trying to corrupt or influence politicians” by offering them hospitality, said The Times, and instead are seeking to “build a relationship and to help them understand key issues coming up in their sector”.
What do they have to declare?
Chapter 1 of Parliament’s Code of Conduct explains the rules around the “Registration of Members’ Financial Interests”. Members must register any “gifts, benefits or hospitality” with a value of over £300 that they receive from a UK source, within 28 days. They must also register multiple benefits from the same source if these have a value of more than £300 in a calendar year. This also applies to gifts from donors registered outside the UK.
Members must register political donations of more than £1,500, “either as a single donation or in multiple donations of more than £500 from the same source in a calendar year”.
While this applies to all MPs, since 2015 government ministers have not had to register anything they receive “in their ministerial capacity”. Such interests are meant to be published in the government’s “transparency returns”, which include no details, appear roughly every three months and are “often late and incomplete”, wrote Labour MP Chris Bryant in The Guardian in 2022.
“This is bonkers. It means there is less transparency for ministers than for other MPs.”
Should the rules be changed?
Senior Labour figures have been quick to defend the practice of accepting gifts from donors even as the likes of Starmer, Reeves and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner have announced they will no longer accept free clothes in a bid to move on from the row.
There are now “growing calls for reforms to the way MP gift declarations work and for an overhaul of the ministerial code”, said The Observer.
The Times said there is a “perception problem” over such gifts, and campaigners warn that MPs risk a “conflict of interest when they take them from individuals, businesses or industry bodies whose interests they may end up voting on”.
Susan Hawley, from Spotlight on Corruption, which wants reform of the declarations system and an overhaul of the ministerial code, said it is a “good example of the Westminster bubble, where everyone is doing it without really thinking through how it looks to the wider public.
“The country is at a bad time, everyone is going to have to make sacrifices. It does not look right if politicians making some of the decisions are having nice freebies.”