Labour leadership hopeful breached rules on donations
REBECCA LONG-BAILEY repeatedly breached Parliamentary rules on registering financial interests for her Labour leadership campaign, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
The shadow education secretary accepted a donation in kind worth £23,000 from Unite the Union on Jan 28 but did not register it with the House of Commons until June 2, missing the 28-day requirement for registering donations. The delay means Ms Long-bailey also breached the Labour Party’s leadership election candidate code of conduct.
While a candidate in the Labour leadership campaign, she called for transparency around political donations. Ms Long-bailey was the first candidate to voluntarily publish a list of donors on Feb 26.
The House of Commons register of Members’ Interests shows two further breaches of the rules by Ms Long-bailey. A donation of £23,000 from the Fire Brigades Union was accepted on March 4 but not registered until April 28, and a donation of staff time from campaign group Momentum worth £85,376.19 was accepted on Jan 15 but not registered until Feb 28. This donation in kind appears to have been registered in Ms Long-bailey’s voluntary publication, but neither met the 28-day requirement. A total of £8,896.96 was repaid to Momentum.
A spokesman for Ms Long-bailey said: “After receiving a delayed invoice and realising admin error, we updated the register in line with the rules. We published donations on the campaign’s website during the election.”