Sir Keir Starmer pays back £6,000 worth of gifts - including Taylor Swift tickets

Sir Keir Starmer has paid back more than £6,000 worth of gifts and hospitality received since taking office, Downing Street has said.

The prime minister is covering the cost of six Taylor Swift tickets, four to the races and a clothing rental agreement with a high-end designer favoured by his wife, Lady Victoria Starmer.

Follow politics latest: Updates on freebies row

It follows weeks of criticism over Sir Keir and his top team accepting tens of thousands of pounds worth of freebies from wealthy donors.

While this has all been declared, opposition parties have accused Labour of hypocrisy, given they vowed to “clean up politics” if they entered government.

Sir Keir said it was “right” that he repaid the gifts while he fleshes out a new set of principles for governing donations, which currently rely on an individual’s judgment.

Speaking to reporters from Brussels, he said: “We came in as a government of change. We are now going to bring forward principles for donations because until now, politicians have used their best individual judgement on a case-by-case basis.”

He added: “I think we need some principles of general application. So I took the decision that until the principles are in place, it was right for me to make those repayments.”

Sir Keir has already said he will no longer accept donations to pay for clothes.

A Downing Street spokesperson said: “The prime minister has commissioned a new set of principles on gifts and hospitality to be published as part of the updated ministerial code.

“Ahead of the publication of the new code, the prime minister has paid for several entries on his own register. This will appear in the next register of members interests.”

Questions over Lord Alli keep donations in spotlight

It’s the story that won’t go away for Labour.

The government may have bigger issues on its plate – it is dealing with an ongoing escalating situation in the Middle East and the prime minister is in Brussels for discussions with the EU – but back home more questions now surround one of Labour’s biggest donors.

Lord Waheed Alli, the man at the centre of the donations row, is now under investigation by the House of Lords’ commissioners over an alleged “non-registration of interests”.

Labour insist this is a clerical error and are privately confident the investigation will be resolved quickly.

But it once again brings the issue of donations to the fore – an issue the government knows it needs to put to bed quickly.

So much so that today Number 10 has confirmed the prime minister has paid back £6,000 of gifts he had accepted through the election – including covering the cost of six Taylor Swift tickets, four to the races and a clothing rental agreement with a high-end designer favoured by his wife, Lady Victoria.

Last week Labour’s Baroness Harman said Sir Keir Starmer should stop trying to “justify” accepting gifts as it is “making things worse” and even suggested he should auction off some for charity.

The government seems to be listening – just very slowly.

Today it commissioned a new set of principles on gifts and hospitality to be published as part of the updated ministerial code – but to many in the party, this is the right action but far too late.

While Lord Alli’s ongoing investigation doesn’t relate to donations, it’s a reminder of just how long stories like this can linger if they’re not dealt with straight away.

Gifts paid for by Sir Keir include four Taylor Swift tickets from Universal Music Group totalling £2,800, two from the Football Association at a cost of £598, and four to Doncaster Races from Arena Racing Corporation at £1,939.

An £839 clothing rental agreement with Edeline Lee, the designer recently worn by his wife to London Fashion Week, along with one hour of hair and make-up, was also covered by the prime minister.

However, Sir Keir has also accepted a further £6,134 in “clothing and personal support” for Lady Starmer in June, from prominent Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli, according to the latest register of interests published on Wednesday.

That is likely to come under scrutiny after it emerged that the Labour peer, and one of the party’s top donors, is facing a House of Lords investigation over “alleged non-registration of interests”, leading to a possible breach of the members’ code of conduct.

Sky News understands that the investigation doesn’t relate to donations but rather a clerical element of already declared interests.

Sir Keir also took £920 from Tottenham Hotspur stadium for two tickets to the north London derby in September, and £1,000 from Arsenal FC for a game in August, according to the register.

He has previously defended his decision to accept hospitality in order to attend football matches, citing security concerns which prevent him from watching from the stands without a large and expensive police presence.

The register also showed that Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner declared £836 in hospitality as a “visit to (a) DJ booth” after she was seen partying in Ibiza.

The registration relates to a trip to a nightclub on the Spanish island, where the housing secretary was filmed dancing and being cheered on by the crowd over the summer.

The name of the donor listed on the latest register of interests is Ayita LLC.

Liam Conlon, the Labour MP and son of Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Sue Gray, accepted two tickets to a Taylor Swift concert from the Premier League, the register shows.

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