MPs have received nearly £70,000 in free tickets to concerts and sporting events this summer, including concerts by Ed Sheeran and Adele and the British Grand Prix.
An update to the MPs’ Register of Interests published on Thursday revealed that 10 MPs received tickets worth several thousand pounds for the Silverstone Grand Prix.
Among the MPs who received Grand Prix tickets were Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, whose two tickets worth £1,516 were provided by Motorsport UK, and former Minister Dame Andrea Leadsom, who received two tickets worth a total of £2,600 from Silverstone Circuits itself.
Crawley MP Henry Smith recorded the most valuable declaration of hospitality, with Emirates Airlines paying £4,248 for two Grand Prix tickets.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen during the British Grand Prix at Silverstone (David Davies/PA)
(PA wire)
Other Cabinet ministers who received hospitality included Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey, who was given a ticket to an Ed Sheeran concert at Wembley by the Betting and Gaming Council, and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Simon Clarke, who received hospitality at Wimbledon worth £1,250 from the Lawn Tennis Association.
Ms Coffey was one of eight MPs to attend the Sheeran concert, along with former leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch and chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris.
Among the 11 MPs present for free at Wimbledon were Health Minister Maria Caulfield, whose £3,258 ticket was paid for by the Betting and Gaming Council, Shadow Culture Secretary Lucy Powell and Labour’s Tan Dhesi, guest of the chemical company AkzoNobel.
Conservative MP and former Cabinet Minister Stephen Crabb also attended the championships as a guest of oil company BP.
The Betting and Gaming Council, which represents the gambling industry, shelled out a total of £9,975 providing MPs with tickets to Wimbledon and to see Sheeran.
Ed Sheeran proved a popular choice, with eight MPs getting free tickets to see the singer (Yui Mok/PA)
(PA Archive)
Four Labor MPs – Kevin Brennan, Conor McGinn, Ms Powell and Zarah Sultana – received free tickets to Glastonbury, while current Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi received four tickets to a Billie Eilish concert by Universal Music.
Other musical gifts included tickets to see Adele, received by former Cabinet Minister Matt Hancock and Calder Valley MP Craig Whittaker.
Only two MPs have said they are going to see matches at the Women’s Euro so far.
Ruth Cadbury attended the quarter-final between Germany and Austria courtesy of Brentford FC, while Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer received four Football Association tickets worth a total of £1,000 to see the England beat Sweden 4-0 in the semi-final at Wembley.
Other MPs are known to have attended the final on July 31 but have 28 days from then to register any hospitality with parliamentary standards authorities.
So far only rugby MP Mark Pawsey has declared tickets to the Commonwealth Games, revealing he watched rugby 7s courtesy of consumer goods company Reckitt.