Robert Jenrick defends £75k donation after criticising Labour in freebies row
Robert Jenrick has defended being handed a £75,000 donation from a company which had received money from a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), despite criticising Labour over the freebies row.
Questions have been raised over the ultimate source of the funds from The Spott Fitness, which gave Mr Jenrick three separate £25,000 donations in July.
As first reported by Tortoise Media, the company received a loan from a firm based in the BVI.
The Tory leadership contender told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that The Spott Fitness “as I understand it… is a fitness company that operates in the UK”, and the donation was “perfectly legal and valid”.
Politics Live: Tory leadership candidates faced questions on Sky News
Mr Jenrick spoke to Sky News alongside the three other rivals to replace Rishi Sunak, as the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham kicks off.
During the interviews, Kemi Badenoch said she is a fighter and if someone takes a swing at her “I will swing back”.
Meanwhile, Tom Tugendhat defended his “posh boy public school background”, saying his military service has given him leadership skills, while former home secretary James Cleverly refused to name any of the previous four Tory prime ministers as being to blame for the party’s general election defeat, saying the public “don’t like infighting”.
Jenrick says donations ‘valid’
Asked about the donations from The Spott Fitness, which have been declared on his MPs’ register of interests, Mr Jenrick said: “As I understand it, this is a fitness company that operates in the UK.
“It’s a perfectly legal and valid donation under British law and we’ve set it out in the public domain in the way that one does with donations.”
Pressed for details on who owns the company and who works for it, the former immigration minister said this would be set out “on Companies House in the normal way” and he has “obviously met people who are involved in the company”.
“What people are criticising Labour for is actually rather different,” he added.
“Labour are being criticised for their rank hypocrisy that they spent years complaining about other political parties and then they’ve chosen to take off donors and cronies and to give passes to Number 10 in response.”
The Labour Party Conference in Liverpool last week was overshadowed by a donation and freebies row, after it emerged Sir Keir Starmer accepted over £100,000 in gifts since 2019.
Starmer has been criticised for accepting freebies. Pic: Reuters
Questions have been raised in particular over the large amount given by Labour peer and TV executive Lord Alli, who had a pass to Number 10 for a short time in order to attend meetings, the government said.
The Conservatives are now gathering in Birmingham since their worst defeat at the ballot box in history at the July general election.
Robert Jenrick speaks to Trevor Phillips
Jenrick backs ‘cast iron cap’ on migration
Mr Jenrick, currently the frontrunner to replace Mr Sunak, said his party made “serious mistakes” and failed to deliver.
He is pitching himself as a “change” candidate, telling Trevor Phillips he would take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (EHCR) in order to get the failed £700m Rwanda asylum scheme up and running, and introduce a cap on migration.
He said this would be different from previous commitments to introduce a limit as the cap would be “legally binding… cast in iron”, with the number set “in the tens of thousands or lower”.
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‘I will swing back’
Badenoch: ‘If you swing at me I will swing back’
Mr Jenrick faces competition on the right from Kemi Badenoch, the former equalities minister.
Speaking to Phillips, she defended an Op-ed in The Daily Telegraph in which she claimed there was a rise in the number of migrants coming to the UK who “hate Israel”.
She said she was not referring to all Muslim immigrants “but there are some, those who buy into Islamist ideology, political Islam, they do not like Israel and we need to be able to distinguish between the two”.
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The combative shadow housing secretary also insisted she does not go looking for fights when asked about her rows with the likes of Doctor Who star David Tennant, but that she will stand up for herself.
The North West Essex MP said: “I will not stand there and let people punch me. If you swing at me I will swing back but I don’t look for fights.”
She added: “I am something that is just different and unique and that is why I stand out in this contest.”
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‘People have seen my faults’
‘Public don’t like bickering’
All four leadership contenders will make their case at the party conference this week, before another round of voting by MPs will reduce them to the final two, which the party membership will then vote on.
Mr Cleverly, who got the least votes of those remaining in the previous round, said his various cabinet roles in the past few years meant he has spent “more time promoting other people’s ideas” rather than his own – but that shows he is a “team player”.
He declined to name a prime minister who he blamed most for the party’s 2024 defeat but added: “I’ll tell you what the public told me they didn’t like – they didn’t like the constant infighting, they didn’t like the bickering.”
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Need to be ‘tough’ on Iran
Mr Tugendhat asked the public to judge him on his own record, rather than his public schooling.
“I think that decisions I have made for the last 35 years demonstrate the character that you are looking at,” he said.
“I have chosen consistently to serve our country. I have put myself on the frontline in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Kemi Badenoch has denied the Conservatives would consider means testing the pensions triple lock, as she accused her opponents of trying to “scare people”.
The Tory leader sought to clarify remarks she made on LBC on Thursday evening, which were interpreted as her leaving the door open to means testing the system that guarantees the state pension rises in line with average earnings, inflation or 2.5% – whichever is highest.
The Conservatives have long championed the triple lock – introduced by former chancellor George Osborne during the coalition government – but some senior Conservatives have recently hinted that it might not be sustainable in the long term.
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Ms Badenoch told LBC her party would look at “means testing” – something she said “we don’t do properly here” – in response to a question about the triple lock.
Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK were quick to seize on Ms Badenoch’s comments, claiming the Tory leader would “cut your state pension”.
However, the Tory leader posted on X that she was referring to means testing generally rather than with specific regards to the triple lock.
‘Bungling Badenoch’: Tory pension proposal triggers political pile-on
From criticising “excessive” maternity pay to describing herself as becoming “working class” while working at McDonald’s – not to mention slamming sandwiches as “not real food” (compared to a desktop steak), Kemi Badenoch is never one to shy away from controversy.
Supporters argue this straight-talking directness is a key part of her appeal. But it also gets her into trouble.
On an LBC phone-in last night she was asked what she wanted to do for younger voters fed up with the triple lock on state pensions (which means they go up every year by 2.5%, inflation, or average earnings – whichever is higher).
Her response was to suggest “we’re going to look at means testing” as “we don’t have a system that knows who should get what”.
The idea that the Tories might not be religiously committed to a universal triple lock has led to a political pile-on.
It’s unclear what exactly means testing the triple lock would work in practice; it’s clearly not a developed policy yet (indeed, Ms Badenoch argues the party shouldn’t be focused on specific policies so soon after their drubbing at the last election).
Politicians on all sides have criticised the triple lock before, with the shadow chancellor Mel Stride previously describing it as “unsustainable” and the new pensions minister Torsten Bell as “messy” in his previous role at the Resolution Foundation thinktank.
But Labour are adamant that they would never abandon the triple lock.
Somehow, the Conservative attack on the government’s treatment of pensioners over the winter fuel allowance has become a big question mark over the Tories’ commitment to a promise which has become totemic with many of their core voters.
“Labour punished poor pensioners, snatching away winter fuel payments due to poor means testing,” she said.
“We need better mechanisms, not proxies like pension credit or free school meals. So why are Labour, Reform, and Lib Dems pretending we’re cancelling the triple lock? They’re scared.”
She continued: “In the clip attached, I say ‘no’ to looking at the triple lock.
“But we do need to deliver better means testing. Big tech and supermarkets know more than the government about its citizens. It’s time to change the system for the better. Let’s do this for the next generation.”
On Friday morning, Nigel Huddleston, the Tory party’s co-chair, defended Ms Badenoch and said means testing was very different to scrapping it all together.
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Speaking to Matt Barbet on Sky News Breakfast, Mr Huddleston said: “What Kemi said yesterday in answer to the triple lock… the first word out of her mouth was ‘no’.
“What she talked about yesterday in an interview was about means testing, and this is something she has commented on before, in the context of, for example, winter fuel.
“And she said, look, millionaires probably shouldn’t get it. Millionaires, not millions of pensioners – millionaires.
“We probably do need to look at means testing at some of those levels, and I don’t think many viewers would disagree with that.”
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