A BANKER who donated more than £20,000 to Labour and worked for the party in the lead up to the General Election has been awarded a plum job in Rachel Reeves’s Treasury.
Ian Corfield, who previously held senior roles in financial services firms, has been appointed as a director to serve under the Labour Chancellor, after gifting her thousands of pounds last year.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he took up a role as a senior business adviser to Labour in January this year, while retaining his job as the chief commercial officer for credit card company NewDay until this April.
His role at the Treasury is as a civil servant, according to the news outlet Politico. Civil servants are bound by rules of neutrality in post but there are no rules preventing donors or people affiliated with political parties from joining the civil service.
While there no suggestion Corfield or the UK Government have broken any rules with his appointment, the revelation has shone fresh light on the links between the Government, deep-pocketed donors and the private sector.
Concerns have been raised Labour are continuing “the same old broken system that allows wealthy individuals who give huge sums of money to political parties secure influence and power”.
Corfield donated £5000 to Reeves last year and had previously donated twice to former deputy Labour leader Tom Watson, with gifts totalling £13,000, and once to one-time leadership contender Rebecca Long-Bailey.
His new position at the Treasury puts him in a salary band of £97,000 to £162,500 and is junior only to the department’s permanent secretary and directors general.
Politico reported that the hire was approved under an exception to appointment rules requiring a transparent and fair recruitment process and approval by the Civil Service Commission.
The exception provides that highly skilled and experienced people can be brought in for fixed terms.
A Civil Service Commission spokesperson told the site: “This temporary appointment was approved by the commission, recognising the need for the civil service to quickly bring in relevant skills for a fixed term.”
Alex Thomas, program director at the Institute for Government, said: “The proximity in terms of timing of the Labour affiliation and the giving of donations, makes it even more important that a merit-based recruitment process is followed and the Civil Service Commission was happy, in order to quell any perception that donations were traded for jobs.”
Greens MSP Maggie Chapman said: “We might have seen a change of government at Westminster but we still have the same old broken system that allows wealthy individuals who give huge sums of money to political parties secure influence and power.
“This isn't how a democratic nation should operate. We shouldn't have governments in the pockets of those who fund them.
“In the 13 years since the Committee on Standards and Public Life recommended a £10,000 a year cap on individual donations, we've seen a deluge of donors gaining public contracts, high level government jobs or seats in the Lords. Meanwhile, the committee’s report has been totally ignored by both Labour and the Tories.”
She said that to “end the influence of the super-rich on our politics”, there must be caps on individual donations, rules blocking donors from being appointed to senior roles and the abolition of the House of Lords.
Chris McEleny, the general secretary of the Alba Party, said: “Labour promised change but this looks more like Tory style continuity of rewarding party donors with political patronage.”
