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Rachel Reeves has said she will not accept free concert tickets again, following a backlash over her attendance at a Sabrina Carpenter gig.<\/p>\n
She has repeatedly defended her decision to accept tickets worth \u00a3600 for her and a family member to watch the American singer from a box at London’s O2 arena.<\/p>\n
She argued it was a way to continue doing “normal everyday things” with her family whilst respecting her security needs as chancellor.<\/p>\n
But in an a shift in her stance, she has now said she would not accept free tickets, adding: “I do understand perceptions”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Speaking to ITV, she said she was unable to buy regular tickets for security reasons and had been offered the box tickets by AEG, which owns the arena.<\/p>\n
She did not confirm which member of her family attended the concert with her, but added that she faced a “balancing act in my job to try and be a good parent” alongside her security needs she now faces in her Treasury job.<\/p>\n
“I felt I was doing the right thing, but I do understand perceptions,” she said, adding: “I recognise the feeling here. I have no intention of doing that again.”<\/p>\n
She added she would continue to accept free hospitality if it was “something that I need to do in my job, like I’m going to a formal dinner or a formal event”.<\/p>\n
“But, look, I went with a family member. I’m not intending to take concert tickets in the future.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Ministers are not banned from accepting gifts, as long as they are declared, but under new rules they must consider the need to maintain public trust.<\/p>\n
The tickets have been declared on Reeves’s public register of interests, which shows she accepted them on 8 March and registered them 10 days later.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had backed the chancellor on Monday, saying “everything she has done is according to the rules”.<\/p>\n
But a day later, Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said he did not “personally think it’s appropriate” to accept free tickets to concerts.<\/p>\n
“If I want to go to a concert at the O2 I’ll pay for it – but individual MPs, individual ministers, make their own decisions,” he added. <\/p>\n
Speaking to ITV on Wednesday, Reeves said she understood her acceptance of the tickets would look “weird” to some people, adding: “I totally get that”.<\/p>\n
“But I do want to carry on doing the things that normal parents do with their kids, and that gave me the opportunity to do that,”<\/p>\n
Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, she said she had been advised it would be “better for security reasons” for her to watch the concert from a box.<\/p>\n
“That’s the reason why I did that, rather than just being in normal seats, which to be honest, for me and my family, would have been a lot nicer and a lot easier”.<\/p>\n
She added that she was “not personally a huge Sabrina Carpenter fan, being a 46 year-old woman”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n