He also said he would “robustly” reject complaints from MPs about members of his whips’ office who are related to figures in No. 10, such as Imogen Walker — whose husband is Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.
MPs have privately complained that, as a result, they can no longer trust the whips’ office to keep them safe from No. 10. Reynolds, however, said: “I think it should be okay to ask people to be treated on their own merits and their own skills.
“Every single one of those people in the whips’ office has an incredible political career already behind them.”
Reynolds, whose wife Claire has held senior positions in No. 10 and Labour, added: “People are complaining that you might be married to someone, but like my wife’s a political professional herself, you know, and I’ve had some experience of that. I think we should all be able to say, ‘Can we not be judged our own merits and skills?’
“And I would absolutely ask anyone to challenge the credentials of any of my whips, because they’re all an incredible team of people recognized for their abilities and brought into a whips’ office to do a job which is essential to delivering on the government’s agenda.”
Reynolds — whose son is autistic and receives both PIP and Universal Credit benefits — said that the government’s botched welfare reforms were “not done in a way that took people with us. That’s why we had to have the changes, and those were important decisions that were necessary for the parliamentary party going forward.”
He said: “I thought there wasn’t sufficient recognition of perhaps my family’s situation, which is, I want to protect the most vulnerable people in this country, but I need public support for the system to do that, and that public support will not be there if we aren’t making sure that we’re running that in a good way.”
Asked how he had persuaded No. 10 to let him give an interview, Reynolds joked: “Well, I just asked the chief whip. I decided to give myself permission, I can’t be reporting to anyone, can I?”