TORY leadership candidate Liz Truss is involved in fresh controversy after a leaked email has left her facing questions over why she did not declare thousands of pounds spent on a champagne dinner.
MPs are required to declare any gifts, benefits or hospitality with a value of over £300.
According to a report in The Independent, around a dozen Conservative MPs are thought to have attended a so-called “Fizz with Liz” champagne dinner.
The event for MPs was hosted by the Foreign Secretary at Mayfair Members club 5 Hertford St last year.
It was paid for by club owner and multimillionaire aristocrat Robin Birley.
However, The Independent report states that when they asked why Truss had not declared the function in the Commons register, her spokesperson denied the foreign secretary had organised the event.
It is thought the function was worth an estimated £3000.
However, this was disputed by other MPs present who said she was the host and not Birley, who only “turned up briefly to say hello”.
SNP MP Kirsten Oswald told The National: "Liz Truss has questions to answer over her undeclared costly champagne dinner.
"However, it speaks volumes of how out of touch the Tories are that while Liz Truss hosts lavish events, ordinary households are struggling to make ends meet as the Tory-made cost of living crisis spirals out of control.
"The fact is that the Tory government is too consumed by its own internal chaos to get on with the day job.
"With the Westminster government failing to properly tackle the cost of living crisis hammering households, it's clear that only with the full powers of independence will we be able to properly protect households and build a fairer and more prosperous society."
Former minister David Davis, who is backing Rishi Sunak in the contest, said: “We have just lost one prime minister after he broke the rules and couldn’t bring himself to tell the whole truth to the House of Commons.
"It would be a tragedy if a would-be prime minister did the same before they even got into Downing Street.”
This comes just days after Truss’s controversial comments towards First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who the prime ministerial candidate labelled an “attention seeker”.
Both Truss and opponent Rishi Sunak are continuing to campaign across the United Kingdom, with the only hustings in Scotland set to take place in Perth on August 16.
