The home secretary went to the James Bond premiere last year because her job is “connected” to the film, according to another minister.
Priti Patel attended the No Time To Die premiere in London’s Royal Albert Hall last year after accepting tickets thought to be worth thousands of pounds.
Standards committee chairman Chris Bryant was questioning Patel’s fellow ministers about her appearance in a debate about why MPs accept hospitality, and how they declare it.
He asked: “Priti Patel went to the Bond premiere on September 28, 2021, as a guest of the Jamaica tourist board.
“She declared that not through the house, but through her department [the home office].
″Why is that in her ministerial capacity?”
“I don’t know the influence, in terms of her constituency,” leader of the Commons, Mark Spencer, replied. “I don’t know if there’s a huge Jamaican population.”
“Why is it in her ministerial capacity?” Bryant asked again.
Spencer said: ″I think it’s fairly obvious she was invited there as the home secretary.”
Bryant continued: “Why is the home secretary being invited for whatever it is, £2,000 tickets – you don’t declare an amount when it’s done through a ministerial capacity as in essence, a minister gets to decide where to register it.”
Bryant asked again: “What’s a Bond premiere got to do with her role as home secretary?”
“Well the nature of the film, one could argue, is connected to executive function,” paymaster general Michael Ellis said.
Bryant laughed in disbelief, and said: “What?”
Ellis continued: “It’s a matter for her though, Mr Bryant, individual cases not withstanding.”
Spencer added: ″The fact that we know about that is because it was logged, registered, and is now in the public domain. That demonstrates that the system works.”
As Bryant pointed out: ”It would have been in the public domain if she had registered it in the house.”
Bryant has developed a reputation for taking on the government in recent months.
In February, he hit headlines for calling out Boris Johnson when the Labour MP was in the middle of putting a question to him over Russian sanctions.
He also held foreign secretary Liz Truss to account over Ukrainian refugee numbers last month, asking her: “Are you not ashamed?”