Ministers' Gifts and Hospitality and Other Transparency Data

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Written Statements

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)]

Ministers’ Gifts and Hospitality

As part of the Government’s commitment to transparency, the Prime Minister updated the ministerial code on 6 November 2024. This requires the Cabinet Office to publish a Register of Ministers’ Gifts and Hospitality every month.

The register will bring closer alignment between ministerial declarations of gifts and hospitality and the parliamentary regime, ending the system where ministerial declarations are published many months after parliamentary declarations. The register will also require ministers, for the first time, to declare where possible an estimated value for all hospitality received.

In line with this requirement, the Cabinet Office published on Thursday 30 January the following datasets:

Ministers’ gifts and hospitality for the period of July to October 2024;

the first monthly Register of Ministers’ Gifts and Hospitality for November 2024; and

the second monthly Register of Ministers’ Gifts and Hospitality for December 2024.

The Cabinet Office also published new guidance on the publication process for the new register. The Government will publish a Register of Ministers’ Gifts and Hospitality at the end of each month.

Other transparency datasets

Government Departments also published the following routine transparency data for the period of July to September 2024:

Ministers’ meetings with external individuals and organisations, and overseas travel;

special advisers’ gifts, hospitality and meetings with senior media figures;

senior officials’ business expenses, hospitality and meetings with external individuals and organisations; and

business appointment rules advice given to applicants at SCS2 and SCS1—and special advisers at equivalent levels.

[HCWS408]