Labour ministers have been accused of “compromising their judgment” after they accepted at least £642,000 in free trips, Bafta tickets and football match hospitality from corporate interests since 2019.
Other gifts accepted by present members of the cabinet included free tickets to Glastonbury from YouTube, Taylor Swift tickets from the Premier League and a whisky tasting session from the drinks giant Diageo.
Analysis by The Times found that cabinet ministers had declared more than 160 free tickets to football matches at a cost of £66,000, Glastonbury tickets worth £12,000, and free clothing worth £22,000 since 2019.
It comes as Sir Keir Starmer continued to defend his use of an £18 million penthouse apartment belonging to the Labour peer Lord Alli.
Starmer justified the donation — with a declared value of £20,400 — claiming that it was important his son had a peaceful place to study for his GCSEs. It has since emerged that he had previously used the flat to film political campaign material, though did not declare this as a benefit.
Starmer dismissed allegations that he was pretending the flat was his own home for the videos as “farcical”.
He told reporters: “I understand why the public have questions about this. I think the best thing we can do is to explain the circumstances and be absolutely clear that nothing wrong has been done here.”
Starmer has also faced questions over his reliance on Lord Alli to buy him and his wife expensive clothing. He has since declared he would no longer accept donations for clothes, as have the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
Questions have also emerged about Starmer’s acceptance of hospitality at football matches, with 90 tickets figuring among his £133,000-worth of gifts since 2019.
While most of these are from Premier League clubs and the Football Association, others come from corporate donors. Two tickets to the Chelsea v Arsenal match in October last year, worth £2,400, were provided by Cain International, an investment firm operating in the Britain, the United States and Europe.
A source at Cain International said its chief executive, Jonathan Goldstein, a co-owner of Chelsea Football Club, had offered a “private and secure box in the stadium given the security needs of a politician such as Sir Keir”.
Other tickets, for Newcastle United v Arsenal in November last year worth £1,000, were provided by Teescraft Engineering, a machining company based in Bishop Auckland.
Starmer has said he accepted the tickets because of security concerns. Critics have pointed out that the party’s former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, routinely sat in the stands at Arsenal.
Other gifts accepted by Starmer included tikets to see Coldplay and Adele, free accommodation for holidays in Wales and an oil painting worth £1,500.
Elizabeth David-Barrett, professor of governance and integrity and director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex, said: “There are two problems with these freebies. There is the real risk that they compromise ministers’ judgment, improperly influencing the decisions they make. Ministers might think they are immune from this and that they will always behave impartially, but research suggests that they are often kidding themselves: the impact can be quite subconscious.
“The other is that just the appearance of a potential conflict of interest damages public trust. It would be far easier for the public to trust those in the highest public office if they were not tainted by the sense that money might buy influence over their decisions.”
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, received £110,000 worth of gifts, of which £100,000 were overseas trips. He also received 12 free tickets to football matches at Tottenham Hotspur.
Rayner received £54,000 in gifts, including clothing worth £3,200 from Adrianna Papell and ME+EM. She received £22,000 for a “branded vehicle”, part-funded by the consultancy Pentland Communications.
Reeves accepted an Anya Hindmarch bag “containing a range of cosmetics, stationery and other products”. The bag was handed out to delegates at the Founders Forum business summit and included £1,250 worth of items, including from Aspinal of London and the White Company.
Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, received free tickets to the Chelsea Flower Show from the management consultancy EY.
Sue Hawley, executive director at Spotlight on Corruption, said: “If people can buy privileged access to ministers and MPs, whether it be through donations or hospitality, it seriously undermines people’s faith that government decisions are being taken fairly and in the public interest.
“It also entrenches the view that politicians live by a different set of rules when they take lavish freebies prohibited by the vast majority of private and public sector organisations while claiming to serve the public.”
The Labour Party was approached for comment.
Something to declare
Total value of donations and freebies accepted by Labour cabinet ministers.
Keir Starmer
£133,590
David Lammy
£110,038
Angela Rayner
£53,987
Wes Streeting
£53,663
Lucy Powell
£42,563
Ed Miliband
£16,712
Louise Haigh
£12,560
Pat McFadden
£11,582
Steve Reed
£11,123
Bridget Phillipson
£42,288
Darren Jones
£10,929
Peter Kyle
£29,278
Jonathan Reynolds
£26,575
Lisa Nandy
£20,495
Rachel Reeves
£18,980
John Healey
£17,450
Ian Murray
£13,579
Jo Stevens
£6,580
Yvette Cooper
£4,785
Shabana Mahmood
£2,890
Liz Kendall
£1,500
Anneliese Dodds
£1,400