A report which alleged that the transport secretary is using a lobbying group to protect airfields from development has been denied by his department.
According to The Sunday Times, Grant Shapps "set-up and diverted public money" to the Airfield Advisory Team.
The report said the group was created to lobby against planning developments that infringe on airstrips.
Objections by the AAT had helped disrupt plans for 3,000 homes at Chalgrove, a south Oxfordshire airfield, while the team had also expressed opposition to a potential battery gigafactory on Coventry airport, according to the newspaper.
But these assertions have been rejected by DfT officials, who said the team was not a lobbying body and instead provided "support to general aviation on a range of matters affecting their operations".
A government source told the Press Association: "This body is not a lobbying body, it is an advisory body to help general aviation with problems they may have, which may be planning or anything else.
"It is not essentially anti-housing - indeed, housing can sometimes be a solution for financing an airfield.
"As secretary of state for transport, it is his function to protect general aviation and we've seen a decline in the number of airfields across the country."
A DfT spokesperson said: "It is right that the transport secretary works to promote all aspects of the department's brief including the general aviation sector, which contributes £4bn to the economy and supports 40,000 jobs, especially as we focus on our recovery from the pandemic and on building a diverse workforce that's fit for the future."
Mr Shapps is a keen pilot and, according to the Sunday Times, owns a £100,000 plane.
The newspaper's report suggested the transport secretary's hobby had "undermined" attempts to repatriate Britons affected by the collapse of travel company Thomas Cook in 2019 and had used up "valuable time" while the DfT handled post-Brexit and COVID travel issues.
But a source dismissed such claims, telling PA they were "utterly bogus and demonstrably false".
The report comes amid the continuing fallout from the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal.
The furore, in which the Conservative was found to have broken the rules regarding his £110,000-a-year private sector work advocating for two firms, has sparked a wider debate and prompted a renewed focus on MPs' activities outside the Commons and their extra earnings.
Mr Paterson resigned as a Conservative MP after Downing Street abandoned an attempt to avoid him being hit with a 30-day Commons suspension for breaking lobbying rules.
Since then, a number of allegations of sleaze have been levelled against the Conservatives.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak told Sky News earlier this week that the government needs to "do better" amid sleaze allegations against MPs.
But Boris Johnson has insisted sleaze allegations levelled at the Tories will not affect voters' choices in upcoming by-elections.
However, in a sign that the claims could be having an impact, a number of opinion polls have shown Labour taking a lead over the Conservatives.
In a bid to keep up the pressure on the party, Labour is calling for the Commissioner for Standards to investigate Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg after it was reported that he may have broken the rules by failing to declare director's loans from his company Saliston Ltd between 2018 and 2020.
In a statement to the Mail on Sunday, which reported the claim, Mr Rees-Mogg denied any wrongdoing.
Appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Angela Rayner fielded questions about some of the outside activities and extra earnings of Sir Keir Starmer, the party's leader.
Asked if Sir Keir using his Commons office for Zoom calls with the public was within the rules, Ms Rayner did not address the question directly, saying: "This prime minister has allowed corruption and sleaze to enter our politics.
"£3.5bn has been given in contracts to Tory donors and Tory friends, and a cost of £9m of donorship to the Conservative Party, this has to be cleaned up."
Asked about the Labour leader earning more than £100,000 in legal fees since he became an MP in 2015, Ms Rayner responded: "Keir Starmer has given up his certificate to practise and we've been very clear, and I will not accept that, somehow, if you look at those that are having lobbyists, that have got contracts for consultancy and how the revolving door between former prime ministers lobbying the government, the money that's been wasted, the taxpayers' money that's been wasted on dodgy contracts, is absolutely obscene and the sleaze and the scandal and the corruption has undermined our democracy.
"The British public value the fairness and playing by the rules. Boris Johnson does not play by the rules, has broke(n) the rules on numerous occasions and allowed his ministers to, this has undermined our democracy and he needs to clean up the act."
And asked about Sir Keir advising Gibraltar's government, Labour's deputy leader told the broadcaster: "Me and Keir have been absolutely crystal clear on this and our manifesto has been consistently clear on this since 2015, that we would ban paid consultancy and directorships and lobbyists."
She added: "I do not accept the premise that what [Sir] Geoffrey Cox was doing, advising a tax haven which is described by the government as corrupt and using his office to do that, in any way, shape or form the same as Keir Starmer doing some legal work when he was first an MP, that is not the same."
Sir Geoffrey, Tory MP for Torridge and West Devon, is facing allegations that he used misused his Commons office to carry out work on behalf of international law firm Withers, work he has been paid more than £800,000 for.
He denies any wrongdoing with regards to his Commons office and has said it is up to his Torridge constituents to vote him out if they are unhappy about it.
