Rishi Sunak has been accused of wasting taxpayers’ money and making a mockery of the government’s strategy to tackle the climate crisis after he hired a second private jet to travel to the UK within a week.
The Prime Minister took an approximately 90-minute journey on an RAF jet to Scotland for a two-day visit, where he held a meeting with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and announced the opening of two new free ports.
Both leaders met in Inverness before Sunack headed to the nearby port of Cromarty Firth to mark the announcement of plans for a green free port there. He returned to Downing Street on Friday afternoon.
The return journey, coming days after Sunak took another 200-mile RAF flight on a 14-seater to Leeds, led Labor to accuse him of developing an “expensive habit of flying around in private jets courtesy of the taxpayer”.
Angela Rayner, the party’s deputy leader, said the prime minister should personally explain why he “saw fit to command a valuable aircraft described as critical to the security of the United Kingdom”.
She added: “As well as making a mockery of his government’s own ‘zero jet strategy’, it exposes a desperately out of touch prime minister, leaving the public to pay the price for his poor judgment and wasteful behaviour.”
Rayner accused the Conservatives of spending taxpayers’ money with “reckless abandon” and promised Labor would treat them “with the respect they deserve”.
Criticism of the cost of the flight also came from the Liberal Democrats. Daisy Cooper, the party’s deputy leader, said the cost of such a flight proved how “unaffordable” Sunak was.
She said: “What does he have to say to all those commuters who were unable to take a private jet to work when his government failed to call off the strikes?”
Number 10 defended the Prime Minister’s use of a plane instead of driving or train. Sunak’s spokesman said the Prime Minister’s transport decisions were based on “the best use of his time and taxpayer funding”.
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They added: “In this case his plane travel allowed him to have that meeting last night with the First Minister and you know about his other meetings… We always look at [environmental] questions in solving the prime minister’s transport. I point out what he was able to do last night in Scotland.
The majority of people think it is wrong for cabinet ministers to use private jets to travel around the country, according to a recent YouGov survey of 4,950 responses.
It found that 77% thought it was inappropriate, while 16% said it was appropriate. Among Conservative voters, 76% disagree with the idea, while 23% support it.
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