Sir Keir Starmer is in a “pressure” job and should be allowed to enjoy gifts and hospitality if it is declared correctly, a cabinet minister has told Sky News.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said anyone who is a PM “spends pretty much every bit of their waking life working on it” and if they are able to do something important to them “I don’t think that’s a problem”.
It comes after Sky News’ Westminster Accounts project revealed Sir Keir has received substantially more freebies than any other MP since becoming Labour leader.
Since December 2019, he received £107,145 in gifts, benefits, and hospitality – a specific category in parliament’s register of MPs’ interests.
The Premier League is one of the biggest donors of hospitality, and Sir Keir – a renowned Arsenal fan – has received almost £40,000 in tickets overall since December 2019.
Mr Reynolds said: “I think anyone who’s doing a job of the pressure, of the scale, of the importance that the prime minister does, spends pretty much every bit of their waking life working on it.
“And if they’ve got the chance for a little bit of time with family or something that’s important to them, in this case lifelong support for a football team, I don’t think that’s a problem.”
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He added that people “would reasonably expect” prime ministers to sit in a director’s box at a sporting event for security reasons.
Asked about accepting free tickets to concerns like Taylor Swift and Coldplay, he said: “These are major cultural, sporting events. I think it’s important people in public life have some connection to that.”
The business secretary went onto say that there are “clear rules” around accepting gifts and hospitality and he has “no objection to how the system works”.
He said: “I think we’ve got a completely open system of transparency in this country, which is the right thing to have.”
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