Blair, colleagues charged with misuse of Queen's Flight

Blair, colleagues charged with misuse of Queen's Flight

	Published : Thu, 13 Apr 2006 13:15 By : David Simms Print this Story

LONDON: Prime minister Tony Blair and some of his senior cabinet colleagues have been accused of using the Queen's Flight as if it is a "private taxi service".

According to information gathered by the Tories, Blair has flown the Royal Squadron more than 670 times since 1997, for trips including family holidays. The trips between 2002 and 2004 had totally cost around 1.22 million pounds. His cabinet members, notably environment secretary Margaret Beckett and chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown, too have used the planes for various trips. Beckett has been found to have had short haul trips in these planes to Brussels, "sometimes via her constituency".

Shadow transport secretary Chris Grayling charged that the system was being misused by the ministers. He said, "Ministers, including Gordon Brown, have been using it for short hops to Brussels, Margaret Beckett has been using it to drop her home in the East Midlands and the prime minister has been taking it on holiday with him.

"Of course ministers will always need to use official aircraft on occasions but these figures create the sense that the system is being abused."

The prime minister's office denied any wrong doing, contending that the flights were all undertaken for government business and when it was found to be most necessary. The RAF flights to the northeast, where Blair's constituency Sedgefield is located, were used only when there were government engagements, it was clarified.

Government officials confirmed the prime minister used an RAF helicopter to fly from London to Birmingham in April 2005, during the election campaign period.

But, a spokesperson for 10, Downing Street, denied Blair had broken Whitehall rules forbidding the use of government resources for party political purposes because, during his visit to Birmingham, he had held talks on the future of the Rover car factory at Longbridge.

He pointed out that Blair's predecessors Margaret Thatcher and John Major used to have RAF flights for holiday travel, which was in fact stopped by Blair in 2000. The only time the prime minister took a RAF flight along with his family was on a trip to Egypt in 2001. This was specifically on an advice not to take a commercial flight because of security risks.

Beckett had taken some 110 RAF flights to travel to EU meetings at a cost of 110,000 pounds and she was found to have been travelling often via East Midlands, which is near her constituency of Derby South. A spokesperson said it has been found to be economical to transport ministers and officials to a meeting on a full RAF plane than on a standard commercial flight.

A Defra spokesperson said Beckett's use of RAF aircraft for flights is governed by time and cost considerations, as well as the ministerial code of conduct.