Hospitality and Members of Parliament

 MPs have been accused of failing to learn their lesson over freebies after taking almost £400,000 of hospitality to concerts and sporting events this year...

Despite the outcry in 2024 over Keir Starmer accepting football tickets and clothing, MPs appear to have been declaring hospitality this year on a greater scale than previously seen. The most recent disclosures include tickets worth £858 to a Harry Styles concert at Wembley from PRS for Music, an industry group, which was accepted by Powell, Labour's deputy leader and now education secretary.

Rave Punk Gal
Jaksta
Image Credit:  Maarten Roes Franken [CC BY-ND]

Wes Streeting, now defence secretary, accepted tickets to the Chelsea flower show worth £1,839 from Lloyds Banking Group. Haigh, who is Andy Burnham's deputy, accepted a £1,314 ticket to the Ivor Novello awards, while Annaliese Midgley, now chief whip, enjoyed Brit awards hospitality for two worth £3,432, hospitality at Cheltenham festival worth £350 from the betting company Flutter, and tickets to the Grand National valued at £560...

Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, accepted tickets to the men's Wimbledon singles final worth £1,480... while Ellie Reeves, the attorney general, accepted a £1,314 ticket to the Ivor Novellos while solicitor general...

Susan Hawley, the director of  Spotlight on Corruption, suggested MPs should consider whether they should accept free tickets. "Some ministers and MPs appear to have short memories of the freebie-gate scandal that engulfed the first few months of Starmer's time in No 10," she said.

"Showering MPs and ministers with gifts and hospitality is a tried and tested lobbying tactic by big business and foreign governments. There is no good reason why elected officials should be accepting jaunts and tickets to events that have nothing to do with their parliamentary or constituency business."

Duncan Hames, director of policy at Transparency International UK, added...

"MPS should be clear-eyed about why these invitations are really being offered. Before accepting hospitality, they should stop to consider what the company might be hoping to gain and what the public will make of it.

(Rowena Mason, The Guardian, 2026)

Tickets given to MPS include: a Sabrina Carpenter concert, Qatar Goodwood Festival, (from the Qatar embassy), Cirque du Soleil (from  Quebec Government Office), Henley Festival, (from Fenchurch Advisory Partners) Paul Simon concert (Diageo) Cheltenham Racecourse (News Group Newspapers), British Grand Prix at Silverstone, (Silverstone).

Coincidence Corner

2nd December 2025: Tory MP and former deputy PM Sir Oliver Dowden, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the United Arab Emirates, tells the Commons the UAE is "one of our nation's staunchest allies and a key investor, benefitting constituencies up and down the country". He asks whether Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer will join him "in congratulating the UAE and recommitting to this key strategic relationship".

16 June 2026: Dowden receives hospitality at Royal Ascot, worth £510 courtesy of the UAE embassy.

The Jockeys' Dressing Room at Ascot
John Lavery (1856-1941)
Photo Credit Tate  [CC BY-NC-ND]

22 June Tory peer Lord Stephen Parkinson tells the House he is glad that "Silverstone is secure through its current contract" to hold the British Grand Prix until at least 2034, trumpeting that the event "attracts more than 500,000 people annually, generates £100m in local economic impact each year and contributes to a wider Formula One ecosystem in the UK that is worth over £12bn annually".

4 July: Lord Parkinson is handed two tickets from Silverstone to watch the Formula One sprint race and the British Grand Prix qualifying

23 April: Tory peer Baroness (Lucy) Neville-Rolfe submits a written question to the government, asking "what assessment they have made of the potential economic impact of the full implementation of financial risk assessments on gambling on the horse racing industries."

5 June: Baroness Neville-Rolfe and her husband receive tickets for and hospitality at the Epsom Downs racecourse, courtesy of horseracing firm the Jockey Club which has lobbied against the introduction of financial risk assessments, designed to help ensure punters make bets they can afford.

Another forgetful intervention from geezerish Perran Moon, Labour MP for Camborne and Redruth and former second-hand car dealer. In the Commons he urged transport secretary Heidi Alexander to heed the electric-vehicle lobby.

Not for the first time, Moon omitted to mention that at the 2024 election he received a £10,000 donation from Danny Luhde-Thompson of Quadrature Capital, a hedge fund that is up to its prosperous oxters in... electric cars.

(Private Eye, 2026)