12:11pm Tuesday 9th February 2010
By Tom Moseley
EAST Lancashire MPs used plush Westminster facilities to entertain PR firms, Sky TV and a delegation from the Cayman Islands, it has been revealed.
Parliament has published details of 8,000 bookings made by MPs for outside parties since 2004.
Most events listed by the House of Commons Banqueting Office were for causes which the MPs had supported in the past.
Blackburn’s Jack Straw hosted a Lord Chancellor’s Breakfast in the Churchill Dining Room in 2008.
In 2006, Burnley MP Kitty Ussher arranged a “Blackpool Resort Casino Reception” for 65 in a dining room.
Hyndburn MP Greg Pope did not make any bookings.
The only entry on the register from Pendle MP Gordon Prentice related to dinner with a Canadian delegation from the New Brunswick Department of Tourism and Parks last February.
Tory Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans made 31 bookings over the five-year period.
These included three annual dinners for the Old Giggleswickians, a club for former pupils and staff of a school in Settle; five functions for the Small Business Bureau; and a buffet on the Terrace Pavilion listed on the register as “beauty awards”.
The register also includes functions for the Parliamentary Beer Group, of which Mr Evans is a member, the Hindu Forum of Britain, and the Cayman Islands Government Office.
In 2008 he spent six days on an all-expenses-paid trip in the Caribbean beauty spot with the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Cayman Islands.
Mr Evans said: “I believe no member should derive any pecuniary interest from any booking, and the new level of transparency will see that this is adhered to.”
Janet Anderson, Labour MP for Rossendale and Darwen, arranged 19 functions, including a 50-person reception in a Commons dining room for London-based PR firm Luther Pendragon in 2006.
The same year, Sky TV came for lunch, and 75 people from Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School attended a function.
Mrs Anderson also arranged for two visits from the Food Service Packaging Association.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk