ARTICLE: Rachel Reeves and her dubious donors:
Corporate lobbyists, a private water CEO, private equity multimillionaires, Israel lobbyists, private health investors and (unsurprisingly) Labour Together.
[SOURCE: Rachel Reeves’ declarations on the MP’s register of interests.]
£13k from lobbyists FGS Global (who lobby for private health company Optum (part of UnitedHealth Group), and are owned by KKR, the private equity giant which tried to buy Thames Water). The funds donated by FGS were allocated for costs for a reception. Other clients of FGS include Oracle, EY, Reckitt, Shein, CMA CGM (shipping), Evri, Taylor Wimpey, Index Ventures (venture capital), ASOS, and Greystar (a US-based private equity real estate firm).
A further £17k from FGS Global to cover costs for Kamella Hudson, a partner at FGS Global, to be seconded to Rachel Reeves’ office as an adviser for four months during 2024. Hudson was “working closely with“ the Shadow Chancellor, and was “a key member of Reeves’s campaign team as they prepared to enter the Treasury”.
£40k from Alison Wedgwood, a former Labour councillor and CEO of eWATERservices, a private water operator in sub-Saharan Africa. Wedgwood also founded Africa Water Enterprises, “to introduce private sector drivers and rational [sic] to the rural water development sector.” Organisations such as Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa have called privatisation “one of the biggest threats to the realisation of the human right to water on the continent of Africa”. Privatisation of water in Africa has also been accused of “exacerbating inequalities” and “undermining universal access” and threatening Africa’s human right to water.
£150k from Victor Blank (Israel lobbyist, former Chairman of Lloyds TSB, and senior adviser to US private equity group TPG Capital).
£150k from David Sainsbury (one of the biggest donors to Labour since the Blair era, and main funder of Blairite ‘think tank’ Progress).
£15k from Portland founder Tim Allan, a man who has lobbied for BAE Systems, William Hill, Qatar, Kazakhstan, and Russia, was a top advisor to Tony Blair and to Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB, was a trustee of ‘Sex Matters‘ an anti-Trans activist group, and was (in September 2025) appointed Executive Director of Communications to Keir Starmer. Allan resigned in February 2026 (after just five months in post) when it was revealed he still held shares in his other lobbying firm, Strand Partners. Strand’s clients include Amazon UK, Landsec (the UK’s largest property developer and investor), Uber, Oviva UK (private provider to the NHS of weight loss jabs), Wales & West Utilities (gas supply for Wales and the South West which was sold by former owner Macquarie to a Hong Kong billionaire in 2012), IGEM Future Energy Networks Limited, property developers Berkeley Group, Southern Gas Networks, Vertical Aerospace Ltd (owned by private equity fund Mudrick Capital Management), Virgin Media, O2, Cadent Gas, OVO Energy and Netflix.
Over £100k from the scandal-hit funding conduit Labour Together. Morgan McSweeney’s Labour Together have come under fire for lying that their purpose was one of party unity when they were in fact a project to crush the party’s left; for failing to declare £740k in donations despite advice; and for trying to set GCHQ on journalists that were investigating their failure to fully declare their their funding. Paul Holden’s book ‘The Fraud’ details the secretive, anti-democratic and in some cases, criminal actions of Labour Together.
£45k from pro-Israel multi-millionaire Trevor Chinn. Chinn is senior advisor to the private equity firm CVC Capital Partners which has investments in dozens of private healthcare companies. Chinn was formerly the Chair of CVC and made £28 million from CVC’s deal selling off KwikFit. The Times reported in 2005 that “CVC and its executives use offshore jurisdictions to maximise secrecy and minimise tax”. CVC Capital Partners’ portfolio includes private hospital chains in France, Greece, Brazil and the Phillippines. As of October 2025, CVC boasted a “broad healthcare portfolio of over 25 businesses worldwide“. CVC also buys up energy networks, schools, health businesses in the UK, veterinary services and food retailers. Chinn was awarded Israel’s highest civilian honour in 2024 for his dedication to Israel. He was granted the award by Isaac Herzog, the president of Israel, a man who has been named by the ICJ as inciting genocide and posed signing IDF bombs headed for Gaza.
£27.5k from Lord Clive Hollick, an investor with shares in American health insurance giant UnitedHealth.
£1.9k from Kevin Craig, founder and CEO of lobbying firm PLMR. PLMR’s clients include three different private health lobby organisations (ABHI, AdvaMed and MTG), Moderna, Verity Healthcare (a private, for-profit care home chain) and BDS target Booking.com. Kevin Craig was a parliamentary candidate for the Labour party in 2024, but caused a scandal when he bet against himself winning. The Gambling Commission launched an enquiry into his behaviour, he was suspended from the party, and Labour returned the £100,000 donation he had made.
£106k from Gary Lubner, an Israel lobbyist who is alleged to have profited from South African apartheid.
£13.4k from Richard Parker, the Labour Mayor of the West Midlands, who was formerly a Partner and Director at PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) where he worked for 26 years).
£5k from Matthew Oakeshott (Lib Dem peer and multimillionaire businessman).
£10k from Neil Goulden (former chairman of gambling giant Gamesys).
Plus – £4.5k from Commercial Estates Group Ltd; £99k from Green Finance Institute Ltd; £10k from Richard Flint; £4k from Juliet Rosenfeld; £4k from Nick Bulter; and £5k from Lord (Phillip) Harris of Peckham.
ADDITIONAL FACTS ABOUT RACHEL REEVES
Reeves has demonstrated a longstanding desire to make substantial cuts to benefits, having called for the winter fuel allowance for pensioners to be cut in 2014 (when in opposition) and having promised to be “tougher on benefits than the Tories” when notoriously harsh Ian Duncan Smith was the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
Reeves was one of the recipients of party funds diverted by right wing Labour staffers via the ‘Ergon House’ subterfuge during the 2017 general election campaign.
Reeves was an officer of LFI (Labour Friends of Israel) and was a former vice-chair of the organisation. She declared in October 2025 that she “will always be a friend of Israel”. Reeves opposes BDS and did not vote in favour of a ceasefire in Gaza in November 2023. Reeves gave a speech in which she stated that chanting ‘death to the IDF’, ‘globalise the intifada’, speaking of the ‘Zionist lobby’ and campaigning for cultural boycotts are are all “antisemitic acts”.
She was one of the key architects of Labour Together.
Reeves is very comfortable around corporate lobbyists, and has attended the offices of or spoken at events for inHouse and private health insurer Aviva.
In September 2025, Reeves was a speaker at the BVCA Summit – the BVCA is the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, and it lobbies parliament for favourable conditions for those in the private equity and venture capital business. It describes itself as “the voice of private capital in the UK. Note: BVCA has recently been renamed as UK Private Capital.
Rachel Reeves reportedly softened plans to increase taxes for non-doms after the CEO of Blackstone (the world’s biggest asset manager firm) personally ‘raised concerns’ with her. Stephen Schwarzman lobbied the chancellor on tax rules weeks before Labour’s policy was changed by Rachel Reeves to avoid increasing the tax burden on the super rich.
Reeves decided that private equity carry-over tax would be raised from 28% to 34%rather than the 45% promised in Labour’s manifesto, following pressure from the private equity lobby. Reeves had previously promised to close a tax loophole in which “private equity bosses who strip the assets of British businesses pay a lower rate of tax on their bonuses than workers do on their wages”; the decision to allow this to continue was described as private equity scoring “a huge Labour tax climbdown“.
Reeves chose not to sign the July 2025 letter calling on the Foreign Secretary to enforce sanctions on Israel.
Following publicised raids on workplaces and homes across the UK in 2025, Reeves addressed illegal immigrants in a speech saying “we are coming after you“.
Reeves has refused to implement a wealth tax, despite calls from the public, bankbench MPs, millionaires and senior Labour figures. She said in 2025 that the government had ‘got the balance right’ on taxing the wealthy, and ignored a 2025 parliamentary motion signed by MPs to introduce an annual wealth tax.
Rachel Reeves has consistently asserted the importance of deregulating of the financial sector.
Reeves has been the target of widespread criticism for her insistence on adhering to her self-imposed, arbitrary ‘fiscal rules‘, which she regards as “non-negotiable“.
Reeves granted £50k of public money to private pharmaceutical firm Accord Healthcare, based in Newcastle.
Rachel Reeves’ husband is Nicholas Joicey, former Financial Director at the DWP (Department of Work and Pensions).
Reeves ia a Landlord: she gains rental income from a property in London.
Reeves said the student loan system is “fair and reasonable” in January 2026, after freezing the salary level at which (Plan 2) graduates have to start repaying their student loan, forcing many low earners into a debt prison due to staggering amounts of interest.
Reeves came under fire over apparent exaggerations and inaccuracies on her CV.
VOTING RECORD
– Voted in favour of removing the right to trial by jury (in cases where the sentence would be three years or less). Of Labour’s MPs, 303 voted in favour, 88 abstained and ten voted against.
– Did not vote in favour of a ceasefire in Gaza on November 15th 2023 – despite the death toll having reached almost 15,000 and over 100 UN relief workers having been killed by Israeli forces. Just 56 Labour MPs dared defy the whip and vote in favour.
– Voted in favour of the cuts to disability benefits (1.7.25), described as a “sham of a bill“, and which despite concessions, is still a £2bn cut to UC affecting 750k new claimants.
– Reeves voted to keep the two-child benefit cap in July 2024.
– Abstained on the CHIS (Covert Human Intelligence Sources) Criminal Conduct bill (2020) even though it gave undercover police impunity to rape, murder and torture without prosecution.
– Voted against an investigation into the Iraq War in 2016.
Reeves failed to back Labour motion to withdraw support from Saudi Arabia over alleged atrocities and famine in Yemen (2016).
– Did not vote against the cruel Tory welfare austerity cuts in 2015 later linked to 330,000 excess deaths.
Rachel Reeves and her dubious donors – Labour Right Watch
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