First-class flights for Met officers at £3,600 a time

SCOTLAND YARD has spent £8.5million on flights over the past three years, including more than £400,000 on first class travel.

Britain’s largest police force paid for 13,763 flights between April 2015 and December last year, with officers jetting around the world on a range of investigations.

Questions have been asked after it emerged that the force spent almost £5 million on non-economy flights with £407,952 spent on first class.

The figures, which were contained in a Freedom of Information request obtained by the Taxpayers’ Alliance, come at a time of rising crime and swingeing budget cuts across policing.

According to the data, a total of 114 first class flights were booked by the force, costing the taxpayer £407,952 – an average of £3,579 per flight.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said that in all cases, the cheapest fare that meets the traveller’s needs is purchased, with business class seats usually only considered for flights of more than six hours.

There was no explanation regarding the use of first class air travel.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance said it was “inappropriate” to spend so much on premium flights at a time when Londoners are concerned about the rise in violent crime.

Duncan Simpson, its policy analyst, said: “It is completely unacceptable that we pay for luxury flights that few of us could ever enjoy ourselves. The police will, in the course of their duties, have to take flights occasionally, but it is difficult to understand why they should be travelling so expensively, especially at a time of budget constraints.”