Senior London Labour MP backs further inquiries into growing claims over Rachel Reeves CV and banking expenses

Evening Standard

A senior London Labour MP backed further inquiries into growing claims over Rachel Reeves CV, time in banking and expenses claims.Mitcham and Morden MP Dame Siobhain McDonagh believes such further probing is inevitable after a BBC investigation claimed there was at least an initial inquiry into the expenses of Ms Reeves and two other staff when she worked for Halifax Bank of Scotland.“There is no point not wanting it because it’s going to happen,” Dame Siobhain told BBC Politics Live.But she added: “I have known Rachel Reeves for a very long time and I would say that she is one of the most hard-working, honest politicians I have ever met in a long career.”She stressed: “First of all we have to be sure about what happened with the expenses scandal.“As far as I’m aware she absolutely denies that she was approached by anybody about the expenses scandal.”

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00:00First of all, we've got to be sure about what happened with the expenses scandal.

00:04As far as I'm aware, she absolutely denies that she was approached by anybody about the

00:09expenses scandal and the lady who was the director of HR at the time she was there said

00:16she knew nothing about an investigation and under financial, under the FCA rules, it would

00:23be expected that the head of HR would know about it.

00:27So I think there's still questions to be asked about what is going on and we'll see what

00:36happens.

00:37Right.

00:38So you agree that there are questions still remaining.

00:39I mean, Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the opposition, has tweeted this, the BBC's investigation

00:44raises serious questions for Rachel Reeves.

00:47Keir Starmer said, restoring trust in politics is the great test of our era.

00:52Still she comes clean, not just about her CV, which has been updated in terms of the

00:57dates of when she left the Bank of England and started at HBOS and also about, that was

01:03last year, what she did at HBOS in retail banking as opposed to being an economist.

01:10Not just about her CV, but about the circumstances in which she left HBOS.

01:14No one will take him seriously.

01:15Do you agree with her?

01:17Isn't that the same person who yesterday at Prime Minister's questions raised a question

01:23about the head of immigration control, who was working from Finland only for us to find

01:30out that actually he'd been working for the previous government for five years?

01:34Well, Kemi Badenoch may not have been completely right about that.

01:38I think we need to sort out what the facts are first before we jump to the conclusion

01:45that this is correct.

01:46Right. There was an expenses investigation, that we do know, into Rachel Reeves and two

01:51other senior managers.

01:52You are absolutely right that she left mutually agreed terms at the end of HBOS.

01:58But the very fact there was an investigation, would you like to see more work done on this?

02:04Well, I think that there's no point not wanting it because it's going to happen, isn't it?

02:09And I've known Rachel Reeves, whose birthday it is today, by the way, for a very long time.

02:16And I would say that she is one of the most hardworking, honest politicians that I have

02:21ever met in a very long career.

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