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Jess Phillips flouts the freebie rules yet again
Despite promises to clean up her act after previous violations, Home Office minister waited five months to declare a luxury Chelsea flower show dinner with Lloyds Bank, as Labour’s love of freebies continues, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
CAUGHT OUT AGAIN:
The MP for Birmingham
Yardley can’t resist a
corporate freebie
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HOME Office Minister Jess Phillips waited over five months to put her freebie luxury dinner at the Chelsea flower show from Lloyds Bank on her Register of MP’s Interests.
This looks like a clear breach of rules saying MPs must register such freebies “within 28 days.” The current parliamentary standards commissioner says he is investigating Phillips for “late registration of an interest,” but due to the obscure parliamentary rules, he could not confirm this was over the flower show dinner: I think it almost certainly is.
Phillips has been investigated for the same breach of rules in 2022 and again in 2023. The commissioner said the latter was a “relatively minor breach” about failing to register in time a £1,000 payment from the University of Bristol for a 2-hour lecture.
However, the 2022 case was more serious, involving failure to register “18 financial interests” on time. Phillips failed to register tens of thousands of pounds she received for books, newspaper columns and media appearances within 28 days.
Sometimes, she was several months late. She also simply forgot to register a £1,500 fee for being a panellist on the BBC’s Have I Got News For You until she was reminded to do so by a complaint two years later.
The standards commissioner highlighted “the number and lateness” of these registrations but decided they were “inadvertent” due to “longstanding inattention to administrative detail on the part of Ms Phillips” with “no deliberate attempt to mislead.” Phillips promised she had “put in place” measures to stop future late registrations.
But it seems she hasn’t cleaned up her act. Phillips says she and her husband were “provided with entry to event and dinner hosted by Lloyds Bank at Chelsea flower show” worth £310 on May 20 2024, but waited until November 4 to list it.
Unlike all her former late registrations, this is actually one about lobbying, not just media appearances. Banks taking MPs to the Chelsea flower show was very common before the 2008 financial crash. After the banks were exposed as reckless wrongdoers in the crash, the flower show freebies came to an end but restarted in recent years.
Lloyds Bank took then-chancellor Jeremy Hunt and his wife, and future Treasury secretary Tulip Siddiq (plus one) to the same Chelsea flower show Gala Dinner as Phillips, though they registered the freebies in time.
Hunt and Siddiq also valued their two tickets at £370, so maybe they had better seats than Phillips. The current Labour government are liberalising banking rules, so taking a few MPs to the flower show looks like a good investment.
Phillips was a vocal defender of Keir Starmer over criticism of his complimentary Arsenal tickets in September but was doing so without properly listing her own flower show freebie.
Follow Solomon on X @SolHughesWriter.
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