An MP has denied he was a a guest at a controversial arms dealers dinner.

Colne Valley’s Jason McCartney has come under fire on social media after reports he was a guest at the lavish affair.

Conservative Mr McCartney has strongly denied that he went to the annual Defence Dinner in London after his name was included in a final MPs’ guest list on the website of anti-arms group Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) that was highlighted by a newspaper.

The £246 per head event, which took place on Tuesday at Hilton hotel on Park Lane and was organised by trade organisation, ADS, brought together dozens of arms companies such as Cobham, Raytheon, Thales, BAE Systems and MBDA with MPs such as Vince Cable.

CAAT slammed the event due to its belief that it was a key opportunity for companies, whom it alleges are involved in exporting military weapons to oppressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Gaddafi’s Libya and Mubarak’s Egypt ,to lobby politicians.

The list of MPs was procured by several CAAT campaigners, who group spokesman Andrew Smith said went into the event and picked up copies. It claims Mr McCartney was a guest of ADS.

A link to the web page was posted onto the Marsden Facebook page and attracted over 20 comments.

Mr McCartney said: “I did not go and I didn’t accept the invitation.

“I get invited to 100s of events and did not go to any dinners last week.

“I don’t know why I was on that list –I don’t remember getting the invitation and don’t understand why I was on the final version.

“I was working on constituency issues.

“Perhaps I was invited because of my background in the Royal Air Force, where I was an officer, which is no revelation to anyone.

“I do take a great deal of interest in defence matters because of my time spent there and we have hundreds of jobs in the industry in the UK.

“I think that there is a political motivation behind this.”

He would not comment on whether he had attended before.

He said: “I go to many events.

“I know that I’ve been to the Farnborough Air Show in the past.”

He said he was considering taking action against some of the people who used profane language to describe him on the Facebook page.