Prime Minister accused of 'rank hypocrisy' over £102,000 bill for domestic flights
The Prime Minister has been accused of 'rank hypocrisy' after spending nearly three times more money on private UK flights than Rishi Sunak.
In contrast, Mr Sunak spent £36,900 in an equivalent 10-month period from October 2022 when he became PM.
Labour castigated Mr Sunak in January 2023 for making a 'mockery' of his environmental strategy when he took an RAF jet from Northolt to Blackpool.
Later that year, the then shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told Labour's party conference that she would clamp down on the use of private jets by ministers, attacking Mr Sunak's 'private jet habit'.
She stated that under Labour, strict regulations would be imposed on ministers' use of private aircrafts to 'save millions of pounds for taxpayers'.
Illustrative image shows Sir Keir Starmer on a flight to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (right) and Foreign Secretary David Lammy before boarding a plane, as they depart from Stansted airport in Essex, to travel to Washington DC
Then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak disembarks from a plane at Inverness Airport in May 2024
In February, Sir Keir took a flight to Cornwall, which lasted 41 minutes – the same duration as the Blackpool one for which Mr Sunak was criticised.
Mike Wood, Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, said: 'This is just more rank hypocrisy from Keir Starmer and his Labour government.
'Labour were all too happy to point the finger in opposition. But now in government, it is clear that this was just petty political point scoring and it's one rule for them and another for everyone else.'
