Angela Rayner accepted free tickets to Brighton pride worth £1,100 just days before her stamp duty scandal surfaced, it has been revealed.
The Deputy Prime Minister was gifted a total of five tickets to the event, according to her register of interests.
The tickets were given to Ms Rayner by BN1 Events Collective Ltd on the first day of the pride event on August 2.
They were then registered on August 27, just 24 hours before reports surrounding her new £800,000 flat in Hove emerged.
A Tory source told the Daily Express: "Another day, another freebie from this sleaze and scandal-ridden Labour government.
"It’s one rule for them and another for everyone else.
"While people across the country struggle with the rising cost of living thanks to Rachel Reeves, Labour Cabinet ministers like Angela Rayner are sticking two fingers up to them."
Earlier freebies bagged by Ms Rayner including around £3,550 worth of clothes registered last July, which she claimed as being "for use while undertaking my duties".
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The Deputy Prime Minister was gifted five tickets to Brighton Pride
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She also accepted a visit to a DJ booth in Ibiza in August 2024 worth around £836.
Ms Rayner is fighting for her political future today after admitting to underpaying stamp duty on her new property in Hove.
It is claimed she saved £40,000 in stamp duty on the property because she removed her name from the deeds of a family home in her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency, classifying the Hove flat as her only property despite still spending time at the family house.
Ms Rayner, who is also the Housing Secretary, has referred herself to both the Government’s independent ethics adviser and to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) after making the admission.
Angela Rayner has referred herself to HMRC over the stamp duty scandal
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The Conservatives have called for the taxman to go further and investigate whether Ms Rayner has evaded tax, which would be illegal.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform’s Nigel Farage have both called for the Deputy Prime Minister to resign.
But Sir Keir Starmer is “determined” to save his deputy, according to the Times.
“He wants to do everything he can,” an ally of the Prime Minister told the newspaper.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir gave his backing to Ms Rayner, telling MPs he was “very proud to sit alongside” her.
The Deputy Prime Minister said in a statement on Wednesday she had taken legal advice when she bought the south coast flat in May which suggested she was “liable to pay standard stamp duty”, but had then sought “further advice from a leading tax counsel” after headlines about the arrangement.
She learned that the initial advice had been inaccurate and she was liable to pay additional stamp duty.
That is because she had put her stake in her constituency home in Ashton into a trust set up in 2020 for her disabled son.
Sir Keir Starmer has backed his deputy despite calls for her resignation
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Conservative party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said her explanation “cannot withstand scrutiny”, as he wrote to HMRC calling for a tax evasion investigation.
Mr Hollinrake also called on the tax authority to “consider the application of a penalty for tax evasion”, which could be as much as the full amount Ms Rayner is said to have saved – £40,000.