MPs have been accused of failing to learn their lesson over freebies after taking almost £400,000 of hospitality to concerts, sport matches and other events this year, with Louise Haigh, Lucy Powell and Wes Streeting among those accepting tickets. Despite the previous outcry in 2024 over Keir Starmer accepting football tickets and gifts of clothing, MPs appear to have been declaring hospitality since the start of the year on a greater scale than previously seen. The most recent disclosures include £858 tickets to a Harry Styles concert at Wembley from the PRS, a musicians industry group which was accepted by Powell, the deputy leader and now education secretary.
Wes Streeting, now defence secretary, meanwhile accepted tickets to the Chelsea flower show from Lloyds Banking Group worth £1,839. Haigh, who is Andy Burnham’s deputy, accepted a £1,314 ticket to the Ivor Novello awards, while Anneliese Midgley, now chief whip, enjoyed Brit Awards hospitality for two worth £3,432, hospitality at Cheltenham festival horse racing from betting company Flutter worth £350, and tickets to the Grand National valued at £560. All were backbench MPs while accepting the hospitality and have now been elevated to cabinet jobs under Burnham.
Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, accepted £1,480 of tickets to the men’s Wimbledon singles final while in her cabinet job, while Ellie Reeves, the attorney general, accepted a £1,314 ticket to the Ivors while solicitor general. Burnham, then Greater Manchester mayor, and now the prime minister declared hospitality worth about £6,000 this year – mostly relating to his former role, such as £3,800 tickets to the Brit Awards in Manchester, but also including £500 of tickets to the Grand National’s Ladies Day at Aintree this year. The acceptance of free hospitality by MPs appeared to reduce after mid-2024 after the spotlight on Starmer’s string of free tickets to watch Arsenal football games and Rachel Reeves, the then chancellor, getting sought-after seats for a Sabrina Carpenter concert.
Reeves later said she would not accept free concert tickets again after she was criticised for taking a family member to see the pop star in the O2 arena in March 2025. She defended the decision on security grounds but said she would not do it again because she understood “how people feel about it”. At the time, another government minister, Matthew Pennycock, said he had accepted “zero” free concert tickets as he personally did not think it was appropriate.
But individual MPs, individual ministers, make their own decisions,” he said then. The value of free tickets being accepted by MPs was at about £300,000 a year in 2025, according to the Times last December. But this now appears to have increased, with almost £400,000 of complimentary tickets, hospitality and other gifts having been declared between January and July this year – not including foreign trips.
Sue Hawley, the director of Spotlight on Corruption, suggested MPs should consider whether they should accept free tickets. 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: “Just because something is permitted it is not necessarily appropriate. Before accepting hospitality, they should stop to consider what the company might be hoping to gain and what the public will make of it.” The scale of the declared hospitality may have gone up partly because ministers have become more consistent about declaring hospitality on the MPs’ register, after Starmer changed the rules around transparency.
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