Corbyn hoped wreath trip would be cheap to avoid declaring it
Email shows leader wanted visit under £600 limit
JEREMY Corbyn expressed hopes that his controversial wreath-laying trip to Tunisia could be ‘kept cheap’ so he would not have to declare it, a leaked email shows.
The Labour leader, who was then a backbencher, told staff he had to be careful about the visit because if it cost more than the official threshold, he would have to mention it in Commons debates.
He voiced concerns that the visit would have to be declared formally if it was too expensive.
In the end Mr Corbyn did not declare the trip until an MP referred the case to Parliamentary standards watchdog.
She started an investigation and last year she accepted the Labour leader’s explanation that the cost of the trip was just £4 less than the upper threshold.
The 2014 trip to Tunis, during which Mr Corbyn visited the cemetery where terror leaders linked to the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre are buried, attracted huge criticism last year.
The Daily Mail obtained a photograph of the Labour leader holding a wreath only feet away from the graves of terror leaders linked to the killings.
Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, accepted his estimate that his two-day trip to a five-star hotel cost £656 – just short of the £660 threshold above which visits had to be declared at the time.
She exonerated him even though he admitted it had ‘not been possible’ to find the actual cost, which was met by the Tunisian government. Now it has emerged that at the time of the trip, Mr Corbyn sent an email to a staffer about the trip and whether it should be declared.
In an email seen by the Guido Fawkes website, he wrote: ‘Thanks, just received a text from [redacted] also.
‘It sounds alright but will need to be very clear who is paying for it as I will have to declare anything over £600, unless thy [sic] can keep it cheap. If declared has to be referred to by debates etc.’
The Labour leader told Miss Stone he flew business class on Tunisair and returned on an economy flight – costing £410 total. Mr Corbyn admitted he stayed at the five-star Hotel Le Palace, but said he stayed in a standard room for two nights, costing just £130.
On top of this was £46 for transport from the airport to the hotel. And he estimated the cost of two lunches, two dinners and two coffees at £70.
Rooms at the hotel, which is in the upmarket beach resort of Gammarth, overlooking the Mediterranean, cost from £100 up to £1,700 a night. Last year Labour insisted that Mr Corbyn was staying in a cheap room.
At the time, Sir Alistair Graham, former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, told the Mail that he was ‘sceptical’ when it emerged that the trip to Tunisia apparently only cost £4 less than the threshold.
‘I was sceptical and I’m still sceptical,’ he said. ‘You do expect strong leadership from the Leader of the Opposition and he really should have made sure he fully recorded the details of the trip at the time.’
Miss Stone cleared Mr Corbyn of breaking Commons rules by not declaring 16 trips between 2011 and 2014.
She did find him guilty of not declaring one trip which did exceed the £660 threshold for declarations – a visit to New York in April 2014 to attend a nuclear nonproliferation conference for CND. Mr Corbyn apologised ‘unreservedly’ for that trip.
Referring to the email about the Tunisia visit, a Labour Party spokesman said: ‘This is entirely untrue. What the email shows is Jeremy Corbyn ensuring his staff follow the rules for declaring trips. The email does not in any way advocate avoiding declaring the trip.’
Last October Labour dropped its complaint against the Mail over its coverage of Mr Corbyn’s visit to the graves of terror leaders linked to the Munich massacre.
The party complained to the Press regulator in August about several papers’ coverage of the event in 2014.
But it later told the Independent Press Standards Organisation that they did not wish to take the case against the Mail any further.
‘I was sceptical and I’m still sceptical’