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Andy Burnham has scooped up £6,000 in free tickets in the last year alone
Labour has been plunged right back into the freebies row which derailed the early days of Sir Keir Starmer's time in power after MPs were caught snapping up hundreds of thousands of pounds in "gifts".
Party "big beasts" like Louise Haigh, Lucy Powell and Wes Streeting have all been found to have accepted tickets to luxury events across the nation.
Deputy leader Ms Powell received £858 in tickets to a Harry Styles concert at Wembley from the "PRS for Music" group, as well as entry to the Brit Awards and Manchester City games.
Defence Secretary Mr Streeting snapped up £1,839 in tickets to the Chelsea Flower Show from Lloyds Banking Group.
Haigh, the convicted fraudster and de facto Deputy Prime Minister, accepted a £1,314 ticket to the Ivor Novello music awards, or Ivors.
Chief Whip Anneliese Midgley was treated to Brit Awards hospitality for two worth £3,432 - as much as £1,000 more than the average monthly wage in Britain.
She also hoovered up £350 in hospitality at the Cheltenham racing festival from betting firm Flutter, as well as £500 light of the Grand National valued at £560.
All of the four were backbench MPs when they took the freebies - though have since been handed top Cabinet roles by Andy Burnham.
But multiple Labour heavy-hitters took thousands in free gifts while serving as ministers.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander was handed £1,480 of tickets to the Wimbledon men's singles final.
Ellie Reeves, the Attorney General and the sister of the former Chancellor, accepted a £1,314 ticket to the Ivors while she was the Solicitor General.
Mr Burnham himself declared he had accepted hospitality worth as much as £6,000 this year alone, inlcuding £500 worth of tickets to Ladies' Day at the Grand National in Aintree.
On the other side of the Commons, top Tories Kemi Badenoch, Sir Mel Stride and Andrew Griffith all took north of £1,000 each in free tickets to events like Wimbledon and the British Grand Prix.
Back in 2024, Sir Keir raked in £107,145 in tickets, gifts, benefits and hospitality - including a notoriously large sum from mega-donor Lord Alli to cover the then-Prime Minister and his wife's clothes.
Sue Hawley, the director of Spotlight on Corruption, warned The Guardian last night that MPs "appear to have short memories of the freebie-gate scandal that engulfed the first few months of Starmer’s time in No10".
"Showering MPs and ministers with gifts and hospitality is a tried and tested lobbying tactic by big business and foreign governments," Ms Hawley warned.
"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."
Last December, The Times revealed that MPs had taken in £300,000 in freebies across 2025.
But this now appears to have shot up to more than £400,000 of complimentary tickets, hospitality and other gifts.
This set of freebies was declared between January and July this year, though notably does not include foreign trips.
Sir Keir tightened the rules around transparency after his freebies were brought to light.
Previously, some ministers declared the value of their free tickets on the MPs' register of interests, while some only declared it on the quarterly ministerial register.
If the freebies were connected to a minister's job, they did not have to record their value.
But now, both registers are updated at least monthly - and must show the value of the gifts.
A Labour spokesman said: "After Labour entered office, the ministerial code was strengthened to include new transparency requirements and clear principles governing the acceptance of gifts and hospitality.
"All declarations have been made in line with ministerial and parliamentary rules."
A Conservative source said all hospitality was "properly declared in line with the rules".
"Transparency matters and we would expect the same standards and scrutiny to be applied consistently to politicians of all parties," they added.
