Keir Starmer publicly berates Rachel Reeves after housing rule break - but REFUSES to punish her

Sir Keir Starmer has refused to punish Rachel Reeves for breaking housing rules once again after taking the advice of his ethics chief.

In a newly-released pair of letters on Thursday evening, the PM publicly chastised his Chancellor - and her husband - for not showing him emails with their estate agency sooner.

He told her: "It is clearly regrettable that the information in this correspondence was not shared with me when you wrote to me last night, but I fully accept that you were not aware, at that stage, of these emails.

"I understand that the relevant emails were only unearthed by your husband this morning, and that you have updated me as soon as possible.

"I accept that you were acting in good faith when you wrote to me last night.

"However, it would clearly have been better if you and your husband had conducted a full trawl through all email correspondence with the estate agency before writing to me yesterday."

The PM's Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards Sir Laurie Magnus said he thought Ms Reeves made an "unfortunate but inadvertent error".

Sir Laurie added that the Chancellor "assured me of her confidence that all relevant facts have been disclosed".

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He said it was "clear" her husband, top civil servant Nicholas Joicey, did not recall the exchange, "which took place at a very busy time".

Though the mixed messages from the Chancellor were "regrettable", he said, there was "no evidence of bad faith".

In her earlier letter to the Prime Minister, Ms Reeves claimed she and her husband were not aware that a licence was necessary to let out their south London home - and shifted the blame onto estate agents.

The estate agents apologised to the Chancellor for their "oversight" - but today, emails emerged confirming her husband had in fact been told about the licence.

"Today, the letting agency and my husband have found correspondence confirming that on July 17, 2024, the letting agent said to my husband that a Selective Licence would be required and agreed that the agency would apply for the licence on our behalf," Ms Reeves had earlier told Sir Keir.

"They have also confirmed today they did not take the application forward, in part due to a member of staff leaving the organisation."

The Chancellor added that she accepted "it was our responsibility to secure the licence" before apologising.

Earlier on Thursday, Kemi Badenoch warned that even if the Chancellor was cleared, there was a blame problem inside Labour.

"We've had resignation after scandal after resignation.

"So, let the ethics adviser investigate, and if there’s no problem, then it’s absolutely fine.

"But she is the Chancellor. This is an offence that she is supposed to have committed as Chancellor, a criminal offence, and maybe it is the letting agent's fault.

"But isn't it funny with Labour, it's always somebody else's fault. Always. It's never their own fault."