Labour to close hospitality rules 'loophole' after Keir Starmer freebies row

Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden said a 'Tory loophole' would be closed that meant ministers don’t need to declare the value of hospitality accepted as part of their role

The Government is preparing to tighten rules for ministerial freebies after a fierce backlash over gifts accepted by Keir Starmer and his top team.

Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden said a “Tory loophole” would be closed that meant ministers don’t need to declare the value of hospitality accepted as part of their role. It comes after MP Rosie Duffield dramatically quit Labour on Saturday, accusing the PM and his team of caring "more about greed and power than making a difference".

The Canterbury MP, a longtime critic of the Labour leadership, published a blistering resignation letter saying she was "ashamed" of Mr Starmer for accepting clothes, glasses and accommodation worth tens of thousands of pounds from Labour peer Lord Alli.

Under rules introduced by David Cameron in 2015, hospitality received by ministers in their ministerial capacity are published by departments.

The information is released quarterly and doesn't include how much the gift is worth. Whereas MPs and shadow ministers must declare their interests within 28 days, including the cost, and the results are published every two weeks.

It means that sometimes Government ministers and their opposite numbers can both attend the same event - but only the shadow minister has to declare its value.

Mr McFadden told the BBC: "We will make clear going forward in the ministerial code that both ministers and shadow ministers should be under the same declaration rules."

He added: "This was a Tory loophole, brought in so that you would have an event where the Tory minister, as it was under the last Government, there, the Labour shadow opposite number would also be there, and the Tory minister would not have to declare.

"That was the Tory rules, we don't think that's fair, so we will close that loophole so ministers and shadow ministers are treated the same going forward."

Mr McFadden said he was “disappointed” to see Ms Duffield - a long-time critic of the party leadership - go but admitted he was not surprised. "When I read Rosie's letter last night and listened to the interview there, I think you can see she has been disillusioned with the party leader, maybe the party more generally, for quite a long time," he said.

In 2022, then-Tory Minister Michael Ellis raised eyebrows when he told MPs that Priti Patel had accepted tickets to the premiere of the James Bond film, No Time To Die, as part of her job as Home Secretary.

The tickets, paid for by the Jamaica Tourist Board, were only revealed five months after she accepted them, and with no value attached.

Former Tory minister Penny Mordaunt disputed Mr McFadden's comments, saying: "He clearly doesn't understand the ministerial code at all, the onus on ministers is much more stringent and I as a minister reported monthly on my hospitality. In 12 weeks, the Labour Government has brought doubt to the economy, fear to the elderly and, I'm afraid, a touch of Imelda Marcos to the office of Prime Minister."