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Sir Keir Starmer has defended accepting £76,000 worth of free tickets and clothes during the last parliament, saying a large chunk of it was from football games outside London where his security teams did not want him sitting in the stands.
The Financial Times revealed the £76,000 figure on Monday, including £16,200 of “work clothing” supplied by Labour peer Lord Waheed Alli, former chair of online fashion retailer Asos.
Starmer, a diehard fan of Arsenal football club, told journalists in Derbyshire on Tuesday that he declared all of the gifts he had taken while he was an MP in the House of Commons register of interests.
“Quite a lot of that was Arsenal hospitality and particularly away games where you can appreciate my desire to go in the stands is not always met with approval by the security teams around me,” he said. “It means that I’m in corporate hospitality if I want to see the game.”
About £23,000 of the declared gifts were tickets to Arsenal away matches, which were the most common category of items Starmer received, according to the FT’s research.
He also accepted a ticket to the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, a rugby match at Saracens and two tickets to the royal box at Wimbledon.
Other junkets enjoyed by Starmer have included concerts, such as Adele at Hyde Park. In June 2023, Starmer took four hospitality tickets worth £698 to see Coldplay at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, before staying at a hotel thanks to a donation from entrepreneur Matthew Moulding worth £937.
The previous August Starmer, who is married with two children, accepted accommodation for four people on the scenic Gower peninsula in Wales worth £4,500 as a gift from Crownhawk Properties, a company founded by Welsh entrepreneur Rod Lloyd.
MPs have to declare gifts, benefits and hospitality from UK sources to the House of Commons register of interests. The benefits section of the register groups together gifts, such as tickets, with other categories of expense. It excludes international travel.
The MP who came closest to Starmer in terms of entertainment benefits was Laurence Robertson, a Tory MP who received more than £40,000 in days out from the racing and betting industries since 2019. The Betting and Gaming Council, for which Robertson has also worked, threw him a £2,300 reception to mark his birthday.