In November 2007, two months after being selected as Labour’s candidate for Leeds West, Rachel Reeves declared a donation from Unite in November 2007 of £1,979.50 to the Electoral Commission. As the election got closer, the cheques from Unite kept coming. They gave her Leeds West Constituency £1,500 in May 2009 and another £1,500 in the April before the election. All of these donations were declared with the Electoral Commission correctly. But funnily enough she decided not to put the details on her Register of Members Interests when she won the following month…

This lack of information on the Register of Interests is probably why nobody noticed that Reeves wasn’t declaring an interest throughout the life of the Pensions Bill in Parliament, but Rule 78 of the House of Commons Code of Conduct is very clear:

“Members are required to declare relevant interests on the Order Paper (when tabling any written notice initiating a parliamentary proceeding.”

When Bercow was asked in a Point of Order about this earlier, he decided he didn’t want anything to do with it. To the cheers of the Labour benches.

Odd, but not the end of the matter…