Rachel Reeves won’t take more free tickets after backlash

Rachel Reeves has said she will not accept free concert tickets again, following a backlash over her attendance at a Sabrina Carpenter gig.

She has repeatedly defended her decision to accept tickets worth £600 for her and a family member to watch the American singer from a box at London’s O2 arena.

She argued it was a way to continue doing “normal everyday things” with her family whilst respecting her security needs as chancellor.

But in an a shift in her stance, she has now said she would not accept free tickets, adding: “I do understand perceptions”.

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.

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.

“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.”

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”.

“But, look, I went with a family member. I’m not intending to take concert tickets in the future.”

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.

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.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had backed the chancellor on Monday, saying “everything she has done is according to the rules”.

But a day later, Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said he did not “personally think it’s appropriate” to accept free tickets to concerts.

“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.

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”.

“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,”

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.

“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”.

She added that she was “not personally a huge Sabrina Carpenter fan, being a 46 year-old woman”.