The government is bringing in guidance around donations because the public’s expectations are “so much higher” for Labour than for the Tories, a minister has said.
Peter Kyle, the science secretary, insisted that despite the continued backlash over the freebies row that has engulfed Sir Keir Starmer’s government, “none of the rules had been broken”.
He told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that the reason the government was bringing forward a new set of principles – as announced by the prime minister last week – was because ministers were “trying to meet the expectations that the public have”.
“We had a previous set of leaders in our country, a previous government that was just flouting the rules, breaking the rules and lowering the standards,” he said.
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“We focussed so much on the rules that what we didn’t do – and we now know we have to do – is take what the public are thinking about what happens within the rules.”
“What we’re trying to do is adapt to what are the expectations – because expectations of this Labour government are so much higher than they were of the previous government, for understandable reasons.”
Challenged on whether the government was in fact “trying to meet the expectations that you yourself set” when criticising the Tories in opposition, Mr Kyle sought to draw a distinction by arguing that the Tories had broken the rules by not declaring some donations.
Sir Keir announced a new set of principles for political donations following weeks of criticism after he and his top team accepted tens of thousands of pounds worth of freebies from wealthy donors.
