Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer says there’s no need for an inquiry into how Chancellor Rachel Reeves unlawfully let her family home without the necessary licence.
Last evening the story broke in the Daily Mail that the Reeves family home in south London was let after Labour won the General Election in July 2024 for £3,200 a month. It is in an area where Southwark council requires private landlords to hold a selective licence.
Reeves met with Starmer last evening after she informed the independent ethics adviser and Parliament’s standards commissioner of the error.
The council’s website states: “You can be prosecuted or fined if you’re a landlord or managing agent for a property that needs a licence and do not get one.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has called for “a full investigation” and overnight wrote on social media that Starmer “once said ‘lawmakers can’t be lawbreakers’.”
She continued: “If, as it appears, the Chancellor has broken the law, then he will have to show he has the backbone to act.”
And Badenoch told the Daily Mail: “If the Chancellor, who has spent months floating punishing tax hikes on family homes, has at the same time seemingly been profiting from illegally renting out her house, that would make her position extremely tenuous.”
Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, commented: “The Chancellor is meant to be delivering growth but the only thing she appears to be growing is the government’s list of scandals.
“Just weeks before the Budget, this risks seriously undermining confidence in this government and its ability to focus on the urgent tasks at hand.”
A spokesperson for Rachel Reeves says: “Since becoming chancellor Rachel Reeves has rented out her family home through a lettings agency. She had not been made aware of the licencing requirement, but as soon as it was brought to her attention she took immediate action and has applied for the licence.
“This was an inadvertent mistake and in the spirit of transparency she has made the prime minister, the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards aware.”
Reeves’ embarrassing incident is only the latest by a prominent Labour politician who appears to have misunderstood the housing-related legislation for which her government is responsible.
In August this year junior housing minister Rushanara Ali resigned after it had been reported that she evicted tenants from her property in east London whilst serving as the minister for homelessness. After the eviction she raised rent prices after reportedly failing to resell the property. Ali’s letting agencies also allegedly attempted to charge tenants for repainting and professional cleaning, contrary to the Tenant Fees Act.
In September the then-Housing Secretary Angela Rayner resigned after it was found that she had failed to pay the appropriate amount of stamp duty on a property she purchased in Brighton.
