In 20 trips during the first six months of the year, a total of £1.8m was spent, despite the now prime minister’s call for prudence with public money and government departments being told to find “efficiency savings”.
The visits made by Truss between January and June included some related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, these were on the relatively inexpensive side when compared with a £454,000 trip to Australia, another to Washington DC that cost £229,000, as well as a tour to Rwanda and Turkey that cost taxpayers just under £200,000.
The figure far exceeds the £67,000 her predecessor as foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, spent on trips abroad in the six months before the Covid pandemic.
The costs of trips taken by other ministers in the department were far lower. Lord Ahmad spent £6,787 on a ministerial visit to the US earlier this year, while another such trip, by Vicky Ford to Malawi in April, which included a private charter flight, cost £2,937.
Given the state of strained public finances, Truss has tasked Whitehall departments with cracking down on waste. Last month she told Sky News: “There are plenty of areas where the government can become more efficient. We’re continually reviewing to make sure we’re getting good value for money and I think that’s what taxpayers expect.”
The costs of Truss’s travel prompted accusations of hypocrisy from the Liberal Democrats. Layla Moran, the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, said the prime minister “has quite literally been taking the taxpayer for a ride” and asked how she could concoct “cruel cuts to vital public services when she’s been jetting around the world on ludicrously expensive visits, all paid for by hard-working families up and down the country. It’s pure hypocrisy, and shows once again how out of touch she and her government are,” Moran said.
Such profligacy with the taxpayers money was characteristic of the BJ administration - we shall have to keep our eye on Travellin’ Truss …
The success or failure of LT’s “expeditions” relative to the cost would require skilled, and non-partisan, evaluation … so that lets me out …
If Travellin’ Truss still has the taste for living “high on the hog” at the expense of the taxpayer then I would expect the media to expose that predilection (and soon) …
ETA Another one I found:
Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, wrote to the Foreign Office questioning why spending was up by 45% on its government procurement cards between September 2021 to July 2022.
She asked Gillian Keegan, a senior minister, to give more details about the spending on a range of items, including luxury restaurants and premium home decor brands such as White Company, Ercol furniture and Osborne and Little, a supplier of fabric and wallpaper.
The Foreign Office declined to provide explanations to Thornberry saying it would cost too much money, so the shadow attorney general went public with a letter to Keegan. Data on the FCDO’s spending shows thousands spent on high-end restaurants, such as the Cinnamon Club, the Corinthia hotel, Stanley’s in Chelsea and the Kennington Tandoori, a famous haunt of politicians.
Thornberry also queried more than £900 to Calm Over Chaos, which appears to supply adult colouring books, and £1,850 to Soul Sanctuary, which may be a wellness app. There were two payments of more than £4,000 in total to a barber company called Finishing Touches, although it is understood this relates to general maintenance rather than beauty.
My comments on your post where not directed at you personally.
They were simply a statement of what I perceive to be fact.
Liz Truss has a very high work rate, which is refreshing to see for a senior Politicicition.
How effective that work rate is is a different matter, I think she could achieve a lot more for the economy by sleeping in longer and not spooking the Money Markets
After all the recent mess ups, it has proved the point that it is the International Money Markets which determine whether we sink or swim.
Our Government very nearly succeeded in wiping out the private pensions of millions of us at a stroke.
As regards how much Foreign Office spending on irrelevant things has risen at a time when the rest of the country is having to count every penny to pay the Bills, she is merely following the well worn path of do as I say, not as I do.
My personal view is that Liz Truss is the perfect example of how not to do things and that the Tory Party has so many better MPs who could lead us as Prime Minister
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