£70,000 worth of freebies for MPs

MPS have received almost

£70,000 worth of free tickets to concerts and sporting events this summer, including gigs by Ed Sheeran and Adele and the

British Grand Prix.

An update to the MPs’ Register of Interests published on Thursday revealed 10 MPs were treated to tickets worth thousands of pounds to the Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Meanwhile four other MPs were given free tickets to the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset.

MPs given tickets to the Grand Prix included Defence 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 single most valuable hospitality declaration, with Emirates Airlines paying £4,248 for two tickets to the Grand Prix.

Other Cabinet ministers to receive 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 Treasury Chief Secretary 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 attending Wimbledon for free 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, who was a guest of chemicals 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, paid £9,975 to provide MPs with tickets to Wimbledon and to see Sheeran.

Four Labour MPs - Kevin Brennan, Conor McGinn, Ms Powell and Zarah Sultana - were given free tickets to Glastonbury, while the now Chancellor

Nadhim Zahawi was given 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.

So far, only Rugby MP Mark Pawsey has declared tickets for the Commonwealth Games, revealing he watched the rugby 7s courtesy of consumer goods company Reckitt.