Angela Rayner has denied that her decision to put on expenses hundreds of pounds of Apple electronics is the same as Whitehall’s use of Government procurement cards (GPCs) on luxury items. Labour has claimed that a “lavish spending” culture in the Civil Service has seen taxpayer’s money wasted on fine art and fine dining.
However, Ms Rayner was asked on Times Radio on Monday about her own spending habits, including using £249 of taxpayer’s money on AirPods. “I’m actually using the equipment right now as I’m speaking to you on the iPad”, the deputy Labour leader said.
“This is what I’m using to do my job – in fact I think it’s three years old now – to do my work as an MP and it’s totally transparent. I don’t think the £1,600 on that is the same as millions of pounds that is being used on these credit cards in an inappropriate way.
“You know, we need to make sure there’s transparency and that the public are getting value for money. I can absolutely justify my use of using electronic equipment to do my job, especially when I’m not – during the pandemic – when I wasn’t in the office in Westminster.
“And as I say, now I’m speaking to you on that very iPad that was purchased.”
It was previously reported in The Express how the MP spent £2,367 on top of the range Apple equipment at the start of the pandemic. This included £249 for a pair of personalised AirPod Pros just a year after she was pictured wearing a set of AirPods.
