Labour conference live: Starmer and Gray embroiled in fresh football freebie row with controversial Super League lobbyist

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has explained why she accepted donations for clothes in an interview with The Sunday Times.

Ms Reeves had accepted £7,500 from a donor, Juliet Rosenfield, for clothes. She said she accepted the donation from a “good friend” who wanted to make sure that she looked professional during the election campaign.

She said: “I know for some readers that will sound a bit odd, and I totally get that. It’s not something that I plan to do now we’re in government. But it was how a friend wanted to help me in the election and I really appreciated that, as I am not massively into clothes and shopping.”

Speaking ahead of Labour conference, Ms Reeves said she wanted to “bring stability back” to the UK and “create the environment where businesses invest”.

She said businesses had nothing to fear from Labour’s push to strengthen workers’ rights. “We have been, and will continue to, consult extensively with businesses on them. We said that we’re going to be the most pro-growth government ever, but we believe being pro-business and pro-worker are two sides of the same coin.”

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the government would offer “hope and optimism” but it had to take difficult decisions such as stripping winter fuel payments from millions of pensioners.

She told Sky News this morning: “I take absolutely no relish in the fact that we’ve had to make this decision.

“It was not a decision that we expected to make … Look, there was that huge gap in the public finances, £22 billion.

“The Tories knew that. They called an election, they walked away, and they left it to somebody else to sort out.

“We will fix it, by the way. We will sort this. We will get our economy back on a much firmer footing and we will deliver some hope and optimism about the difference that we can make.”

Angela Rayner has denied breaking Commons rules over declaring a stay in a New York flat owned by Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli.

The Deputy Prime Minister told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “I don’t believe I broke any rules.

“I had the use of the apartment and I disclosed that I had the use of the apartment.

“In fact, I think I was overly transparent because I think it was important despite it being a personal holiday because that person, as a friend, had already donated to me in the past for my deputy leadership.”

The Sunday Times had published a story saying that Ms Rayner had appeared to break the rules by failing to declare that a friend joined her on the holiday.

Ms Rayner stayed at the $2.5m apartment in Manhattan over the festive period last year.

After taking £107,000 in gifts since 2019, more than two and a half times more than any other MP, the Labour leader was challenged on whether he was being hypocritical after criticising Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak for the same.

He responded: “Rules matter. Transparency matters.”

“My criticism was actually more about Johnson than Sunak, because I don’t think [Sunak] needs to take donations.”

He said: “I’ve reiterated that this side of the election people are entitled to see whether you’ve taken gifts, and if so, what are they for?”

He has recently accepted the donation of a box at Arsenal so he can watch matches there without security concerns and remains unrepentant.

“Now that is a gift but I think accepting that is more understandable. If I insisted on going in the stands, that would cost the taxpayer more money through extra security.”

The prime minister said “people will judge me on delivery” not gifts.

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has said she “promised nothing” to Labour peer and donor Lord Alli and “gave him nothing” in exchange for donations.

She explained the clothing donations she had received by saying that people wanted to support her. “These are individual donations, no one’s been given millions, billions of pounds contracts,” Ms Rayner said on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.

Asked about Sir Keir and Sue Gray’s trip to Tottenham Hotspur and alleged infighting in No 10, Ms Rayner said: “I do not see this caricature that we are somehow all fighting over mansions or are all at loggerheads with each other. Actually we are all really focused on making sure that we deliver. That’s what people are going to ask in a few years time.”

She defended saying Ms Gray saying “she has been doing an incredible job”, and criticised a “demonisation” of her in the media.

Bridget Phillipson has suggested her 40th birthday event, which was paid for by Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli, was a work event.

Asked about two events paid for by the Labour peer, the education secretary told Sky News: “The first event was my birthday – I was turning 40, I thought it was a good opportunity to get people together in a professional context.

“So it was journalists, trade unionists, education people, MPs and shadow cabinet.”

The event, which cost thousands of pounds, took place in a “work context”, Ms Phillipson added.

She said: “My own family didn’t come to that. I celebrated my actual 40th birthday with my family, we went for a pizza, I celebrated with my kids.“This was where I got together colleagues, journalists, trade unionists, education people.”

Sir Keir Starmer and his chief of staff Sue Gray are facing a deepening row over football freebies following a story in The Mail on Sunday.

It has emerged that the prime minister and Ms Gray enjoyed a corporate box at Tottenham Hotspur last Sunday, with the tickets reportedly funded by Spurs.

Ms Gray was pictured sitting next to Katie Perrior, the founder and chair of iNHouse communications, which worked on the plan to form a football Super League.

Tory MP John Glen reacted to the revelations by telling The Mail on Sunday: “Is there no freebie that Sir Keir will not take?”, adding: “In view of Labour’s plans for a new football regulator, his presence and that of Sue Gray is a clear conflict of interest.”

Angela Rayner will announce a series of measures to protect renters from fire safety defects, damp and mould, and drive up housing standards in her speech at Labour Party conference.

The Deputy Prime Minister will commit to “building homes fit for the future” in Sunday’s speech, which will open Labour’s first annual gathering since winning the general election.

Before her speech, Ms Rayner – who is also Housing Secretary – said: “Just because Britain isn’t working at the moment, it doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. We will deliver for working people and, in doing so, show that politics can change lives.

“We’ve inherited a Tory housing crisis. This Labour Government is taking a wave of bold action to not only build the housing our country needs and boost social and affordable housing, but to ensure all homes are decent, safe, and warm.”

The package is expected to include a new law aimed at ensuring landlords respond to reports of hazards like damp and mould swiftly.

The proposed legislation, Awaab’s law, is named after two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died as a direct result of exposure to mould in the social home his family rented in Rochdale.

Labour estimates it would support tenants in 746,000 homes with reported serious hazards to secure faster repairs, reducing health and safety risks.

Ms Rayner will speak of plans to accelerate efforts to fix unsafe cladding on high rise buildings across the UK, just weeks after the conclusion of the Grenfell Tower inquiry.

She is also expected to lay out Labour’s intention to consult on a new decent homes standard for all social and private rented homes.