Mayor denies conflict of interest over Swift gig

A company that gave Sadiq Khan £3,000 Taylor Swift tickets was awarded a City Hall contract just a week before the concert.

LS Events hosted the mayor in their box at Wembley days after being chosen to organise Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square, which take place this weekend.

The company offered the tickets a few weeks before it won the contract.

But City Hall insists Khan did not know about them until a day before the concert, had no involvement in awarding the contract and there was "no conflict of interest".

It comes as the mayor is under growing pressure from the Conservatives to explain why he did not declare the gift correctly and on time.

Khan and a group of 10 friends, family members and City Hall staff were given tickets by LS Events to share their box at Wembley on 15 August.

The mayor, his wife Saadiya and two senior officials, Ali Picton and Eliot Treharne, are the only attendees City Hall has been prepared to name so far.

City Hall have confirmed that they were joined by staff from LS Events but have refused to say who they were.

The Greater London Authority rules say: “Particular caution should be taken where any gift and/or hospitality is offered from any company that holds a contract with the GLA or is likely to bid for a future contract.”

It has emerged that on 7 August - eight days before the concert - LS Events was awarded the contract to run Diwali on The Square for the next four years.

In December, LS Events won the contract to organise the St Patrick’s Day event in central London, also for the next four years.

City Hall has refused to disclose how much the contracts are worth because of commercial confidentiality.

In the summer the firm organised fan zones for people to watch the Champion’s League final.

Last year LS Events won a place on an elite list of “approved suppliers” permitted to organise outdoor events on behalf of the mayor in London.

There are just six firms on the approved list and they bid against each other or could sometimes potentially bid unopposed for contracts as they come up.

City Hall says this list was drawn up by officials from the Greater London Authority using normal processes and an open tender.

When the tickets to watch Taylor Swift were first offered by LS Events in June, City Hall says they were “discussed with officers who had nothing to do with the procurement process”.

They were not accepted by the mayor until the eve of the concert and “no-one who received a ticket was involved in the procurement process”.

The spokesman added: “The mayor has no conflict of interest. The mayor has no involvement in the procurement process.”

Neil Garratt, leader of the Tories on the London Assembly, said: “Awarding a company a contract after accepting the offer of lavish hospitality during the bidding process would be an outrageous breach of ethics.

“It is explicitly forbidden in the GLA hospitality rules, I cannot believe people in the mayor's office didn't know.

“Was the late declaration and not mentioning the company name just an accident, or was it an attempt to conceal serious wrongdoing?”

City Hall has so far refused to explain why the mayor declared the gift 10 days late.

But it meant the details were not entered on the City Hall register for the public and media to see at the height of the controversy over “freebies” which engulfed the Labour leadership in the first three weeks of September.

Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, external, X, external and Instagram, external. Send your story ideas to [email protected], external