SIX Conservative MPs were gifted shooting jollies worth almost £7,000, the Morning Star can reveal.

As Labour announced a landmark package to tackle animal cruelty this week, a Star investigation found that trigger-happy Tories are still taking freebies from Britain’s gun lobby to shoot partridges and pheasants for kicks.

MPs Sir Graham Brady, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Jonathan Djanogly, Mark Spencer and Bill Wiggin took the opportunity to amble around Catton Hall estate in south Derbyshire on December 15 last year.

The bill was footed by the the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), which says it aims to promote a “strong and unified voice for shooting.”

The manor’s website says it is arranges “mixed days of pheasant and partridge.”

Before last year’s election, the Star exposed that Mr Brady, Mr Clifton-Brown and Mr Wiggin had accepted a similar gift a year before.

Their 2016 gun-buddy Sir Gerald Howarth stood down at last year’s election, while that party’s fifth member Karl McCartney lost his seat to Labour. Mr Djanogly and Mr Spencer appear to have been offered the spare slots.

Tory deputy chair Bernard Jenkin, who leads the Commons public administration committee, accepted three separate shooting trips.

On December 9, he bagged a day’s shooting worth £800 thanks to Jonny Minter, a farmer in Essex’s Stour Valley.

Mr Jenkin was reloading his gun on New Year’s Day, this time funded to the tune of £1,500 by one Richard Matthews.

A third excursion, on January 6 last year, was paid for by EPC, a “leading UK force in the field of commercial explosives and blasting services,” according to its website. The bill came to £650, including dinner and a hotel room.

Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle exploded: “It seems to me the Conservatives talk a good game about animal rights, but all they care for animals is the game they can shoot.

“They care about running around fields in multicoloured jerkins, letting their dogs rip animals apart or letting their guns do the talking.”

Mr Brady noted in Parliament’s register of interests that his £825.45 freebie included a night at the the Hoar Cross Hall spa hotel, described as on its website as a “Grade II-listed stately home retreat.”

The trip was also valued at £825.45 each for Mr Clifton-Brown, Mr Djanogly and Mr Wiggin, suggesting that they also stayed at the hotel. Mr Spencer’s costs were given as £670.

Labour’s animal welfare blueprint will see the the principle of animal sentience enshrined in law, which the party says will prevent “cruel and degrading treatment.”

The BASC website lists winning a “tail docking exemption” for “gun dogs” as a “key achievement.”

The British Veterinary Association says the practice of snipping off dogs’ tails causes significant pain and deprives dogs of a “vital form of canine expression.”

The BASC has also campaigned against banning lead shot. The Tory government ignored an official report last year recommending the ban on health and environmental grounds.

The Lead Ammunition Group, which carried out the report, found there were at least 10,000 children living at risk of ingesting “sufficient game shot” to cause neurodevelopmental harm and illnesses.

Cotswolds Tory candidate Mr Clifton-Brown, who chairs the all-party group on shooting and conservation, has been a leading opponent of the ban.

“The impact would be significant on the current contribution that the shooting community makes to the UK economy and conservation management,” he said in the Commons in 2015.

Mr Wiggin told the Star that Labour had “voted down” his own amendment to an animal welfare law, which would have lengthened sentences for cruelty, and was “trying to compensate” with its current proposals.

“BASC is a shooting and conservation organisation, as you cannot shoot unless you conserve and protect the wildlife in the countryside,” he said.

He stressed that “shooting is not just about harvesting birds for food but it ensures that habitats which are good for game are important for other species too.”

Mr Jenkin’s office said the MP was “out of the country on a parliamentary delegation” and could not respond in time. The other politicians did not respond to requests for comment.