The free tickets Sadiq Khan received to attend a Taylor Swift concert were worth three times more than first thought, it has emerged.
The mayor of London was gifted six tickets to see the pop superstar’s gig at Wembley stadium on August 15.
The tickets had previously been thought to have been worth £194 each, according to Mr Khan’s original entry in the City Hall register of gifts and interests.
But a spokesman for the mayor said the tickets were in fact worth £500 each - meaning the total value of the gift, which he enjoyed with his family, was £3,000.
The City Hall Conservatives are expected to ask for the matter to be investigated by the Greater London Authority’s standards watchdog.
For the last few weeks, Mr Khan has responded to questions about the free tickets by saying it is “better to over-declare than under-declare”.
The fact that it has taken his aides so long to check the mayor’s official declaration may be seized upon by his critics.
It has also emerged that Mr Khan was offered two sets of Taylor Swift tickets but was only able to attend one of the concerts.
City Hall said the failure to correctly register the tickets was a “simple case of human error”.
It said that Mr Khan had been offered tickets for a Taylor Swift concert in June by the Football Association, which he had planned to accept, but was then unable to attend and therefore declined them.
These tickets, which were valued at £194 each, were “erroneously declared” on the register.
He then attended a subsequent concert in August, in a FA-owned box.
These tickets were paid for by LS Events, a production company that has worked with City Hall as a contractor, including on the “fan zone” for the Champions League final that was played at Wembley.
During the furore about Sir Keir Starmer accepting free tickets for another of Taylor Swift’s Wembley concerts, Mr Khan declined to follow the Prime Minister in repaying the value of the tickets he received.
Mayor @SadiqKhan, who received six free tickets from @FA (each worth £194) to a Taylor Swift concert at Wembley Stadium, appears unwilling to follow @Keir_Starmer and pay back the value of the gift pic.twitter.com/CyuaZOQARM
— Ross Lydall (@RossLydall) October 3, 2024
Mr Khan’s free tickets were also registered late on the City Hall register. Gifts and hospitality are meant to be registered within 28 days.
The register has now been updated with the correct details of Mr Khan’s gift.
Elliot Treharne, a mayoral aide with responsibility for clean air policies including the Ulez, also received a £500 ticket.
Ali Picton, Mr Khan’s director of operations and his closest aide, has declared two Taylor Swift tickets, one for June and one for August.
The tickets gifted to Mr Treharne and Ms Picton were also from LS Events.
Sarah Brown, Mr Khan’s director of communciations, has declared one Taylor Swift ticket, worth £300 and from News UK, the publishers of The Sun and The Times, for the June 21 concert.
The Taylor Swift tickets accepted by Mr Treharne, Ms Picton and Ms Brown were declared after the 28-day due date, a Greater London Authority spokesman confirmed to The Standard.
He said: “They fell outside the 28-day window for various reasons, but the Taylor Swift ticket declarations of those officers are correct and up to date.”
Justine Simons, the deputy mayor for culture, has declared two tickets from Universal Music, value unknown.
Mr Khan’s spokesman declined to name the people who benefited from the six tickets gifted to the mayor, other than to say he was accompanied by his “family”. Mr Khan is married with two adult daughters.
Mr Khan, who is also London’s police and crime commissioner, has denied that he interfered with the Met Police’s “operational” decision to provide a motorcycle escort to Taylor Swift to the concert.
Other recent declarations made by Mr Khan include a £450 ticket to see Liverpool play Bournemouth on September 21 - wheh he would have been in the city for the Labour party conference - and £14,626 from the C40 group of cities for his four-day visit to New York, which he attended in preference to remaining at the Labour conference.
The GLA spokesperson said: “Any gift accepted by the mayor is declared openly and transparently.
“In this case there has been an administrative error. The updated declaration has been correctly submitted.”
