A Labour dossier examining government expenses has accused Tory politicians of ‘lavish spending’ on food and alcohol.
According to the report, Foreign Office (FCDO) officials spent £344,803 of public money in restaurants and bars in 2021, with money being spent on, among other things, five-star hotels, expensive restaurants, luxury furnishings, away days and alcohol.
Specific examples in the report include £3,217 spent by then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak on rooms at the five-star Hotel Danieli in Venice for a G20 meeting; £1,443 spent by Liz Truss on lunch and dinner in Jakarta, whilst the then-Foreign Secretary was on an official visit; and £7,218 spent by Liz Truss on a reception in Sydney in early 2022, when thousands of pounds of alcohol was wrongly expensed as ‘computer equipment’.
‘Today’s shocking revelations lift the lid on a scandalous catalogue of waste, with taxpayers’ money frittered away across every part of government, while in the rest of the country, families are sick with worry about whether their pay cheque will cover their next weekly shop or the next tranche of bills,’ said Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner.
Purchases were made via Government Procurement Cards (GPCs), which Government departments use for official purchases. The spending limits on GPCs were relaxed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing individuals to spend up to £20,000 per transaction and up to £100,000 per month.
The £345,000 spent on food and drink is just part of the spending unveiled by the dossier, which accuses the government of spending nearly £150 million on GPCs in a year - £1.51 million of that was spent at Amazon, with almost £238,000 at Ikea, £106,000 at John Lewis and over £101,000 at Apple.
A senior Conservative source replied to the claims, saying: ‘Awkwardly for Labour HQ they’ve forgotten that they introduced these ‘civil servant credit cards’ in 1997.
‘By 2010 Labour was spending almost £1 billion of taxpayers’ money on everything from dinners at Mr Chu’s Chinese restaurant to luxury five-star hotels.
‘The Conservatives swiftly stopped their absurd profligacy, cutting the number of cards, introducing a requirement for spending to be publicly declared and introducing controls.’
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