Chancellor Rachel Reeves can “absolutely” be trusted, a minister has said, despite questions about her CV and use of expenses while working at a bank.
A BBC investigation found out that while working at Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) Reeves was subject to a detailed whistleblowing complaint, which raised concerns about her use of company money.
A spokesman for Reeves said the chancellor had no knowledge of the investigation, always complied with expenses rules and left the bank on good terms.
Defending Reeves on the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme, Science Secretary Peter Kyle said: “We should be thankful we have an economist by training and by experience delivering for this country.”
Kyle also claimed the BBC’s reporting had been “inaccurate”, adding: “The head of HR at that bank at that time says it’s untrue, said that she never, ever received a file on Rachel Reeves.
“And she says that before she left the bank, there was no investigation that passed her desk. And she’s also said if there was one, it would have passed her desk.”
“I didn’t see any of that reporting included in the story I read yesterday evening on the BBC website.”
The BBC’s reporting did include quotes from Jane Wayper, who was an HR business partner, not head of HR as Kyle described her.
Wayper told the BBC she “would have been made aware of any investigation which concluded there was case to answer”.
She said this was because “I would have been required to organise and oversee a disciplinary process”.
The BBC has not reported that Reeves was subject to a concluding finding or disciplinary action.
The initial stage of an investigation found that Reeves and her two colleagues appeared to have broken rules, according to a senior source, but we have not been able to establish what happened next.
The BBC has also seen memos, receipts, emails and other documents which suggest that some of Reeves’ expenses spending during her time at HBOS may have breached rules.
In the late 2000s before entering politics, Reeves worked at HBOS as a senior manager.
The BBC has learnt that during her time at the bank concerns were raised about Reeves, and two other managers, using the bank’s money to “fund a lifestyle”.
The concerns raised about Reeves’s spending included a £400 leaving meal for a colleague, a £49 handbag for her PA and £152 spent on another bag, along with some perfume as a present for her boss in a joint gift with another manager.
The BBC investigation has also raised questions about the accuracy of Reeves’s online CV on LinkedIn.
Last year she was accused of embellishing it. Her profile was then changed to describe her role at HBOS to “retail banking”. It had previously said “economist”.
The BBC has now established that she exaggerated her time at the Bank of England; in fact she left nine months earlier than she had claimed on LinkedIn.
Reeves was at the Bank of England for five and a half years, but nearly a year of that was spent studying for a Masters at the London School of Economics.
As recently as last year, she said she had spent “the best part of a decade as an economist at the Bank of England”.
A spokeswoman for Reeves said the dates on her CV were inaccurate due to an administrative error by a member of the team and that Ms Reeves had not seen it before it had been published.
On Thursday, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch posted on social media: “Keir Starmer said ‘restoring trust in politics is the great test of our era’.
“Until she [Reeves] comes clean – not just about her CV but about the circumstances in which she left Halifax Bank of Scotland, no one will take him seriously.”
Defending his colleague on the BBC’s Newsnight, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Reeves was a “serious economist” who was doing a “brilliant and difficult job”.
“I think I’ve got a hard enough job trying to turn around the National Health Service and social care. She’s got to worry about that, she’s got to worry about every other public service that’s creaking at the seams.”
