Reeves' ignorance over letting licence requirement is 'not a defence under the law,' minister admits

Speaking with Nick Ferrari at Breakfast, Sir Chris Bryant, Minister for Trade & MP for Rhondda and Ogmore, told LBC that Rachel Reeves "did not act in bad faith" when she failed to apply for the letting license.

However, he did admit that the Chancellor's claim that she was unaware of the requirement, followed soon after by evidence that the estate agent her husband had instructed had failed to apply for the license, appeared contradictory.

"I understand the confusion about the two different accounts, but the truth is... I don't think Rachel Reeves, and the Independent Adviser has found this (too), acted in bad faith," he told Nick.

"She came to the Prime Minister as soon as she could.

"The Prime Minister went to the Independent Adviser and asked for his advice. He looked at it on the basis of the evidence that he had. The new evidence. It's not stuff that she was hiding from anybody. It actually exonerates her."

It comes as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer gave Reeves his full backing after it was revealed she failed to obtain the correct license required to let her Dulwich home.

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Reeves had told Starmer that she was not aware she needed a licence to rent out her south London family home - and has subsequently avoided a formal probe into the matter.

In letters released on Thursday night, the Prime Minister told the Chancellor that despite misleading him over the row, he had accepted that it was done mistakenly.

In a letter between Starmer and ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus, the latter accepted that the failure to get a licence to rent was "an unfortunate but inadvertent error, for which the Chancellor has swiftly taken responsibility and apologised".

Referring to an earlier letter where Ms Reeves wrongly told the PM that she and her husband were not aware of the requirement, Sir Laurie added: "It is regrettable that information provided on successive days has generated confusion, but I find no evidence of bad faith".

Sir Laurie concluded that despite misleading him, Reeves's husband Nicholas Joicey "did not recall this exchange [with the letting agents], which took place at a very busy time."

After receiving the advice from Sir Laurie, Sir Keir wrote to his Chancellor to confirm no further action will be taken.

The Prime Minster wrote: "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."

Concluding the letter, Sir Keir said: "Based on the information you have provided to me, I still regard this as a case of an inadvertent failure to secure the appropriate licence, which you have apologised for and are now rectifying.

"Having consulted the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards and received his clear and swift advice, with which I concur, I see no need for any further action."

Ms Reeves's being cleared for a second time comes despite suggestions that Starmer being misled could trigger a formal investigation by Sir Laurie.

After initial suggestions of impropriety on Wednesday evening, Ms Reeves published letters which proved that her husband had instructed Harvey Wheeler to secure the licence with Southwark Council.

In one email dated July 26, Harvey Wheeler reveals the licence will cost £900, adding: "you will pay in two parts, so £640 first and then once the application has been processed then the remaining £260.00 is taken."

The email from the letting agent also appeared to confirm the company was responsible for applying for the licence, as it added: "I don't apply for the licence until we actually have tenants move in so this payment won't need to be paid until after move in."

The south London agents apologised to Reeves and her family on Thursday.

In a statement Gareth Martin, owner of Harvey Wheeler, estate agents said: "We alert all our clients to the need for a licence. In an effort to be helpful our previous property manager offered to apply for a licence on these clients' behalf, as shown in the correspondence.

"That property manager suddenly resigned on the Friday before the tenancy began on the following Monday.

"Unfortunately, the lack of application was not picked up by us as we do not normally apply for licences on behalf of our clients; the onus is on them to apply.

"We have apologised to the owners for this oversight.

"At the time the tenancy began, all the relevant certificates were in place and if the licence had been applied for, we have no doubt it would have been granted.

"Our clients would have been under the impression that a licence had been applied for. Although it is not our responsibility to apply, we did offer to help with this.

"We deeply regret the issue caused to our clients as they would have been under the impression that a licence had been applied for."