Keir Starmer has repaid thousands of pounds in freebies to restore faith in politics, a minister has said, and ruled out accepting further entertainment.
Industry Secretary Sarah Jones said the Prime Minister’s motivation for repaying the money was “to try harder to get people to trust politicians”.
Starmer has repaid £6,000 worth of gifts and hospitality, including tickets to Taylor Swift and costume rentals for his wife, which he has received since finishing 10th, after a row over the amount of donations he has accepted over the years.
Asked how much damage the controversy had caused the government, Mr Jones told Sky News: We’re always worried, and the main thing in the speech that Mr. Keir gave at the conference was the lack of trust that people have in politics.
“Politics is a force for good so we need to work harder to get people to trust politicians. That’s Keir Starmer’s real driving value and that’s what he’s trying to do. That’s it.”
Mr Jones said the Prime Minister was “calling for new principles around gifts and hospitality and it is right that we take leadership on this”.
She suggested Mr Starmer should repay donations he had received since becoming prime minister. Because Mr Starmer now believes he should be held to higher standards. “The prime minister is saying there is a difference between what we do as a government and what we do as an opposition,” she told Times Radio.
She stressed that no rules were broken and that it was up to individual ministers and MPs to decide whether to repay donations or accept more donations.
Ms Jones, who had received free tickets three times in her seven years as an MP, said she was considering whether she could repay the free tickets to the BBC Proms. She said she would not accept any more free tickets.
“Was I always going out with freebies? Did I get something from these things or give something to someone? Everything was completely underwhelming,” Jones said. spoke of the hospitality received.
“But when you look at it through the lens that the public is looking at now, the question we’re talking about is, why do you go to those events? I’m no longer going to any of those events that I’ve been invited to.” No,” she told Times Radio.
Downing Street officials said Mr Starmer was not setting a precedent that no minister should accept hospitality in the future, but that it was the right thing to do to repay the amount until the rules around hospitality were drawn up. He emphasized that.
The government has established a cross-party modernization commission to examine and update parliamentary standards and procedures.
The Prime Minister’s decision to repay the £6,000 came after weeks of criticism that he had received more than £100,000 in entertainment and free gifts since December 2019. This includes £32,000 of work clothes, a pair of glasses worth £2,400 and the use of an £18m penthouse from Labour’s donor and colleague Waheed Ali.
Mr Starmer, along with deputy prime ministers Angela Rainer and Rachel Reeves, said they would no longer accept free clothing after the controversy.
