Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves was skewered by BBC host Laura Kuenssberg on her free gifts.

Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves was left stuttering live on BBC show Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg as the host skewered her over a gift of free concert tickets. It emerged Reeves – who earns a base annual salary of £91,000 plus £67,000 from her ministerial post – accepted the offer of a free corporate box for Sabrina Carpenter’s latest London gig.

Kuenssberg put the question to her: “Lastly as you’re here, many viewers will remember and many viewers were very very cross when you had just moved into office and it emerged that the Prime Minister and other Labour politicians and you had accepted donations of clothes. In the last few days it’s also emerged that you accepted free tickets for a corporate box to see the singer Sabrina Carpenter at London’s O2 Arena this month. Is that what happened, and if you did why are free clothes a no-no but free concert tickets is a yes please?”

Rachel Reeves BBC Sabrina Carpenter

Rachel Reeves stuttered as she was quizzed on accepting free concert tickets (Image: BBC)

A stuttering Reeves replied: “I went with a member of my family to see a- a concert, a- a couple of weeks ago. I do now have security which means it’s not as easy as it would have been in the past, er, er, to- to just sit in a concert, although, erm, that would probably be a lot easier for everyone concerned. So look, I, I took those tickets to go with a member of er, my erm, family. I thought that was the right thing to do from a security perspective.”

Cutting in, Kuenssberg asked: “Did you pay for them? Because you could pay for them.”

Reeves responded: “Well these weren’t tickets that you could, erm, pay for. Erm, so there wasn’t a price to those tickets. Obviously I will declare the value of them, erm, but they weren’t tickets that you were able to buy.”

Rachel Reeves

Ministers also accepted Taylor Swift tickets to an overall value of £23,000 last year (Image: BBC)

Resale tickets for a Sabrina Carpenter concert can cost up to £1,000, though it is not against lobbying rules for ministers to accept free tickets as long as they are declared as usual. In 2024 a number of cabinet ministers – including the PM – accepted free tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, with the total value exceeding £23,000.

Keir Starmer has since repaid £6,000 for hospitality and gifts he had received since moving in to 10 Downing Street.