NORTH Wiltshire MP James Gray today dismissed concerns over his acceptance of hospitality from the tobacco industry as "snide and absurd".

It comes after a report in the British Medical Journal found 38 MPs accepted more than £60,000-worth of hospitality from the tobacco industry since 2010.

MPs accepted tickets to events including the men's final at Wimbledon, Chelsea Flower Show and a Paul McCartney concert at the O2 Arena, all paid for by the powerful tobacco industry, an investigation has revealed.

Twenty of the MPs recently voted against plain packaging on tobacco products, while more than half of them are from constituencies where the number of smoking-related deaths exceeds the national average, the investigation found.

Mr Gray, who is one of those to vote against plain tobacco packaging, is said to have accepted hospitality worth £1,132 from Japan Tobacco International in the form of hospitality at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2011.

Writing in the BMJ, freelance journalist Jonathan Gornall said that while those against standardised packaging were out-voted, "what remains relevant, however, is the extent to which the tobacco industry remains able to reach out and influence parliamentarians".

He said there was "nothing to stop companies inviting lords and MPs along to the occasional big-ticket event, offering hospitality and talking things over in the convivial atmosphere of a private box or lounge" and there was no evidence that they did discuss any of the issues confronting their hosts.

But he said: "The extraordinary thing, perhaps, is just how many MPs seem to think it is perfectly acceptable to accept such largesse from an industry whose products kill so many of their constituents every year."

The MPs - 29 Conservatives, eight Labour, and one independent - also accepted tickets to Test matches at the Oval and the opera at Glyndebourne in East Sussex.

Hazel Cheeseman, director of policy at Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), said: "It's shocking that politicians continue to accept hospitality from the tobacco industry without questioning the industry's motives.

"Having the ear of a politician is clearly advantageous to companies seeking to influence Government."

Mr Gray said: "The British Medical Journal have listed the 38 MPs who attended the Chelsea Flower Show in 2011 as guests of the Japanese tobacco industry.

"That visit, which came about partly as a result of my membership of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Horticulture and Gardening, is properly declared in the Commons Declaration of Members' Interests.

"Any suggestion that that perfectly legitimate and properly declared visit to Chelsea was in any way connected to my voting against plain packaging of cigarettes some five years later is, of course, both snide and absurd.

"There are powerful arguments in favour of, and against, plain packaging. On balance I concluded that banning brand differentiation would not help reduce smoking. It might indeed have the opposite effect by increasing illegal imports.

"I therefore voted against it.

"The insinuation that that decision was in any way connected with a visit with 37 of my colleagues to the Chelsea Flower Show some five years earlier is both nonsensical and insulting, and I shall be making no further comment on it."