Rachel Reeves has come under fire for accepting an expensive freebie as she prepares to axe thousands of jobs.
The embattled Chancellor admitted that she and a family member took £600 seats in a corporate box at a Sabrina Carpenter concert this month.
It came as Ms Reeves confirmed she will cut Whitehall running costs by 15 per cent, which could result in the loss of 10,000 civil service jobs.
The concert tickets revelation risks reviving the anger that erupted last year when it emerged the Prime Minister and his Cabinet were enjoying lavish freebies including clothing and concert tickets.
Ms Reeves was last year forced to vow not to accept any clothing as Chancellor after it was revealed she had taken £7,500 for outfits while in opposition.
Sir Keir Starmer, who received £32,000 for clothes from Labour donor Lord Alli, had to pay back thousands of pounds in gifts, including tickets to see Taylor Swift.
Ms Reeves yesterday defended taking the VIP tickets at the O2 in London on security grounds, claiming she could not sit with other fans because she requires close protection as a senior minister.
‘I do now have security which means it’s not as easy as it would’ve been in the past to just sit in a concert, although that would probably be a lot easier for everyone concerned,’ Ms Reeves told the BBC.
Asked if she paid for the tickets, she replied: ‘Obviously I’ll declare the value of them, but they weren’t tickets that you were able to buy.’
But she faced a backlash – including from within her own party – at a time when she is also being accused of ushering in a new era of austerity in order to balance the books.
+5 View gallery
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said accepting the freebie at the O2 Arena for her and a ‘family member’ was the right thing to do’
+5 View gallery
Ms Reeves accepted free tickets to watch US pop star Sabrina Carpenter in a corporate box
+5 View gallery
The box used by Ms Reeves for the gig earlier this month is believed to belong to AEG, which also owns the long-term lease for the O2 Arena (pictured)
Mish Rahman, a member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee until last year, called the Chancellor ‘Scrounger Reeves’, asking how she could justify her free tickets as her fiscal rules hit ‘the most vulnerable’.
The damaging row broke out at the start of a crucial week for Ms Reeves – recently voted the least popular Cabinet member in a survey of Labour Party members – as she prepares to deliver her Spring Statement on Wednesday.
Dubbed an ’emergency Budget’ by the Tories, it will see the Chancellor set out her response to a new economic forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog that is expected to halve its growth projection for the coming year.
Labour MP Rachael Maskell told the Mail it was ‘indefensible’ that Ms Reeves – who is paid about £160,000 a year – accepted the free tickets.
She said: ‘Those who live in poverty will rightly question, as they struggle to get by, why those who are cutting their lifeline are in receipt of handouts. Not to recognise the inequity in this goes to the heart of the problem.’
Labour peer Lord Sikka added: ‘Cleansing British politics is a necessary condition for building a good society. That requires criminalising the receiving and giving of all political donations in any form.’
Shadow Cabinet Office minister Mike Wood said: ‘It is shocking that Rachel Reeves has been partying in a VIP box at a pop concert, as families across the country suffer the consequences of her economically illiterate decisions.
‘Keir Starmer told the country that his Government’s addiction to freebies was over, and now his Chancellor is having to defend taking yet another freebie.
‘Reeves should be focusing on undoing the damage she’s done to the economy ahead of her emergency Budget rather than living it up in a VIP box.’
Ms Reeves denied that her proposed civil service cuts represented a return to austerity.
But Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Fran Heathcote warned: ‘After 15 years of underfunding, any cuts will have an impact on front-line services. You can’t cut your way to growth.’
And Dave Penman of the FDA, which represents senior mandarins, said increased use of technology such as artificial intelligence was ‘not going to deliver the sort of savings that are being cut here’.
Sir Keir was also among a slew of top politicians to receive free tickets and hospitality to Taylor Swift’s gigs in London last summer.
He later paid back more than £6,000 worth of gifts and vowed – together with Deputy PM Angela Rayner and Ms Reeves – not to accept any further donations for clothing.
Asked about the Sabrina Carpenter concert on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Ms Reeves – who earns around £160,000 as Chancellor – said: ‘I went with a member of my family to see a concert a couple of weeks ago.
+5 View gallery
PM Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria attended a Taylor Swift gig at Wembley Stadium last June
‘I do now have security, which means it’s not as easy as it would have been in the past to just sit in a concert, although that would probably be a lot easier for everyone concerned.
‘So, look, I took those tickets to go with a member of my family. I thought that was the right thing to do from a security perspective.’
The Chancellor added: ‘These weren’t tickets that you could pay for, so there wasn’t a price for those tickets.
‘Obviously, I’ll declare the value of them but they weren’t tickets that you were able to buy.’
It is understood the declared value of the hospitality will be around £600, although similar tickets for the gig were said to be changing hands for higher prices.
It has been claimed that Ms Reeves received security advice that she could not attend the gig in the general admission areas of the venue.
Sir Keir has continued to accept box tickets to Arsenal football games after being told he can’t sit in the stands with regular fans due to security concerns.
The PM has been a long-time season ticket holder at the north London club.
In her interviews this morning, the Chancellor tried to play down Labour fears of ‘austerity’ despite admitting ‘hard’ decisions are coming in the Spring Statement.
She was forced to deny crushing economic activity since the election by hiking taxes and talking down the country’s prospects.
She also rejected warnings from a think-tank that living standards are set to fall over this Parliament – potentially smashing another of Keir Starmer’s pledges.
Ms Reeves confirmed that the Civil Service will be asked to find more than £2billion in cuts to admin budgets, saying that likely means 10,000 jobs going.
However, the Treasury is thought to need far bigger savings to offset tumbling growth forecasts.
The hole in the public finances could be as much as £15billion, even after proposals were unveiled to cut £5billion off benefits.
Challenged on Sky News over the sluggish economic performance, Ms Reeves said: ‘We do need to do more. Growth is the number one mission of this government. We’re turning things around, but it takes hard work and there are no shortcuts to get there.’
+5 View gallery
Borrowing figures on Friday showed £132billion was racked up in the year to February – £20.4billion more than the Treasury’s OBR forecast as recently as October
Ms Reeves was asked about reports that the Office for Budget Responsibility could slash the growth forecast by as much as half and how seriously her fiscal headroom had been hit.
‘I’m not going to pre-empt the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast, but the world has changed,’ the Chancellor told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips
‘We can all see that before our eyes and governments are not inactive in that – we’ll respond to the change and continue to meet our fiscal rules.
‘But we’re also shaping the new world, whether that’s in the defence and security realm, or indeed on the economy.
‘I promised at the general election to bring stability back to the economy.’
Pressed on a report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation predicting a huge drop in living standards by the end of this parliament, Ms Reeves said: ‘I reject that and the Office for Budget Responsibility will set out their forecast this week.
‘Living standards in the last parliament were the worst ever on record.
‘I’m confident that we will see living standards increase during the course of this Parliament, what we’ve already seen in these last few months of the Labour Government is a sustained increase in living standards.’
Ms Reeves pointed to cuts in interest rates, saying ‘wages are rising faster than inflation’.
‘That was not the case in the previous parliament, which was the worst on record for living standards, but are you saying ‘do we need to do more to grow the economy, to address the cost-of-living crisis?’ she said.
‘Absolutely we do. That is why we are reducing bureaucracy and regulation, it’s why we are reforming the pension system to bring more money into the economy and so much more.’