PM defends stay at donor’s property during election

Sir Keir Starmer has defended accepting accommodation from Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli during the general election, saying it was important his son had a peaceful place to study.

The prime minister told the BBC he had promised his 16-year-old son that he would be able to get to school and do his exams without being disturbed.

He declared Lord Alli had donated several weeks’ accommodation, which is recorded as being worth more than £20,000, in the register of MPs’ interests.

Sir Keir told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I had promised him faithfully that I would give him an environment in which he could calmly get on, his one chance to do his GCSEs, and therefore we relocated somewhere else – a gift which we then allocated a sum of money to.”

Sir Keir told the BBC Today programme: “Somebody then offered me accommodation where we could do that, and I took it up. And it was the right thing to do. It didn’t cost the taxpayer a penny.”

He said he felt passionately about the issue, admitting that for his daughter, who is 13, and his son, the situation was difficult.

“Sometimes what sits behind these are human explanations,” he told BBC 5 Live, particularly in the “hurly burly” of an election campaign – but things had changed now Labour was in government.

The prime minister has faced criticism after it emerged he had received more than £16,000 for work clothing and spectacles for him, and further donations for his wife, from Lord Alli.

He has since declared he would no longer accept donations for clothing, alongside Deputy PM Angela Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

He told Today’s Nick Robinson that he’d accepted the donation for clothing in opposition, during a “busy election campaign”.

“I won’t be making declarations in relation to clothing again, understood,” he said.

The prime minister has also faced down criticism after he decided to accept hospitality from Arsenal football club, arguing he can no longer use his normal seats as prime minister, because of the security he needs.

“As a result of security I can’t go in the stand any more,” he said.

Rows over donations and freebies overshadowed the start of Labour conference – Sir Keir is far from the only MP to have received freebies over the past year.

Many current MPs from across the House of Commons listing free tickets to sporting and cultural events in their registers of interests.

Asked about whether politicians should pay their own way, Sir Keir said it was a question of exercising judgement.

“A culture secretary, for example, will be invited to events quite often, the support of a politician being somewhere is important for a particular event or sport, but it’s a question of judgment, and it’s got to be clear, it’s got to be declared.”