WHITEHALL’S £74M LUXURY TRAVEL BILL

MINISTERS and civil servants have notched up £74million of luxury travel at taxpayers’ expense in the past four years.

Figures show the Department for Work and Pensions spent £5.2million on taxis and nearly £333,000 on business class flights between April 2013 and March 2017. It also paid £33,500 for first-class rail travel.

The DWP said: “The business travel policy expects other alternatives to have been examined and exhausted.

“Where travel is appropriate it requires the use of the most cost-effective mode.”

The Department of Health spent more than £500,000 on taxis, £106,000 on first class train tickets and almost £100,000 on business cabin air fares.

At the Foreign Office, the bill for business class air fares was £17.8million, while £5.9million went on cabs. And the Ministry of Defence spent £29million on business class air travel and £194,000 on first-class rail.

The Ministry of Defence said of its rail bill: “Standard class must be selected, unless there are exceptional circumstances.” Among the other Whitehall divisions, the Brexit department, set up in July 2016, spent £80,000 on business class flights in seven months. It said: “The department always seeks to achieve value for money for the taxpayer and has therefore adopted a policy where, by default, all rail journeys should be standard class.” Shadow Communities Secretary Andrew Gwynne said: “Theresa May has claimed that there is no ‘magic money tree’ for our public services. “But the Government seems capable of finding extra cash when it comes to paying for their lavish perks.”