Priti Patel attended a James Bond film premiere as a minister because she’s responsible for spies, two senior Tories have suggested.
MPs grilled Commons leader Mark Spencer and Cabinet Office Minister Michael Ellis over the luxury freebie during a committee hearing about updating the Code of Conduct for MPs.
They were asked why Ms Patel registered the gift not as an MP, but as a Minister.
MPs have to register any freebies - including their value - with House of Commons authorities within 28 days.
But if they accept a ticket as part of their ministerial role, they don’t have to declare the value, and have three months to register.
Ms Patel put the star-studded event, at which she was a guest of the Jamaican tourist board, on her list of ministerial declarations.
Mr Spencer said: "It's entirely right, I suspect, and I suggest that she was invited as the Home Secretary..."
Pressed by Standards Committee Chair Chris Bryant on what the event had to do with her role as Home Secretary, Mr Ellis said: "The nature of the film, one could argue, is connected to executive functions."
As his response prompted laughter among committee members, Mr Ellis went on: "It's a matter for her, though. Individual cases notwithstanding."
A spokesperson for Ms Patel said the tickets were "declared in the usual way."
As Home Secretary, Ms Patel is in charge of MI5.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is in charge of MI6, for whom the fictional Mr Bond works. Ms Truss also declared the tickets as a minister, rather than as an MP.
Mr Ellis said introducing new anti-discriminatory rules for MPs could have a "chilling effect" on debate.
Asked about potentially making it "explicit" in the descriptors of the principles of public life, or in the rules for MPs, that misogyny is "out of order", he warned against stifling "legitimate" conversations.
He told MPs: "The reality is that if your contention is that there ought to be a new requirement to explicitly, or more explicitly, demonstrate anti-discriminatory attitudes, then the balance that has to be drawn when one starts to drill down further than it already is clear... is one has to consider the chilling effect... unwittingly on debate that might be effected.
"As the Leader was saying... nobody wants to stifle legitimate debate, even raucous robust debate, even... politically contentious issues where people express themselves in an obnoxious fashion, because it's important to our democracy that people don't feel intimidated into expressing their views."
