Reeves denies Rayner has ‘personal photographer’ after departmental hire

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has defended Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s department for hiring a taxpayer-funded photographer.

Labour officials have denied reports that it amounted to recruiting a “vanity photographer” for the Deputy Prime Minister, something Ms Rayner had condemned in opposition.

And Ms Reeves insisted that all departments had communications budgets that they were able to use to promote their campaigns.

The Daily Mail reported that the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary has hired a photographer to record her work.

It claimed she was the first Deputy Prime Minister to have hired such a member of staff.

But the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said the photographer had been hired to chronicle the work of the department, not just Ms Rayner.

“Many government departments employ official photographers to share the work of the department and ministers with the public,” the department said.

“This is a civil service role and will be part of MHCLG’s communications team.”

The civil servant employed in the role, Simon Walker, is understood to be paid within the grade 7 band, which has a minimum salary of £57,000 a year – with the Daily Mail reporting he was on £68,000.

On his LinkedIn profile his job description is listed as “chief photographer to the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government”.

He had previously worked in No 10 as chief photographer to Rishi Sunak.

Ms Rayner was not involved in the recruitment process for the photographer, the PA news agency understands.

But while in opposition Ms Rayner was highly critical of Boris Johnson’s three taxpayer-funded photographers.

In 2021 she said: “The public will be rightly questioning why there is apparently no limit on the money that can be found to pay for a coterie of vanity photographers for the Prime Minister.”

Ms Reeves insisted Mr Walker was not Ms Rayner’s “personal photographer”.

She told Times Radio: “All government departments under all governments have press officers and communications budgets.

“It’s not a personal photographer.”

Ms Reeves was asked on BBC Breakfast whether the hire was a waste of public money and said the Government had committed to reducing the size of its communications budget, but reiterated that all departments have media officers and photographers.

“Not for individual politicians but to support the policy work, the campaigning work, the initiatives of Government departments, to help Government departments do their jobs.

“This is not to support Angela Rayner as a Labour Party politician. This is to support the ministry for housing, communities and local government.”

Shadow paymaster general John Glen said: “This is just the latest in a long line of Labour ministers saying one thing and then doing another.

“Labour’s promise to cut the size of the government spin bill was nothing more than empty words, they’d rather spend taxpayers’ money on their own vanity projects than on keeping pensioners warm this winter.

“After scrapping Conservative plans to slim down civil service headcount, Labour should stop pretending that their decision to cut the winter fuel allowance was anything other than a political choice.”