A Commons Speaker billed taxpayers more than £500 to take ‘an extra suitcase’ on one of his lavish jaunts, it can be revealed.
A list of Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s expenses reveals he lodged the claim during a nine-day trip to South Africa and St Helena, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic.
The total cost of the sojourn was £23,643, including £21,300 on First and Business Class flights with British Airways and South African carrier Airlink.
But the small print shows how ‘£504 was paid to bring an extra suitcase onboard’ during the jaunt, which was also enjoyed by two of Sir Lindsay’s staff.
His office last night said the spend was necessary because the baggage allowance on the Johannesburg-St Helena leg of the trip, operated by Airlink, was less than the London-Johannesburg BA leg.
However, they refused to say what the extra weight allowance was needed for, simply saying that it ‘contained necessary resources to support the trip’.
But former Tory Brexit minister David Jones blasted: ‘How many clothes do you need for St Helena?
‘It’s in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and I wouldn’t have thought there’d be many black tie events there.
A list of Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s expenses reveals he lodged the claim during a nine-day trip to South Africa and St Helena, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic
A list of Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s expenses reveals he lodged the claim during a nine-day trip to South Africa and St Helena, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic
‘All Parliamentarians, no matter how exalted, have got a duty to take into account the value of taxpayers’ money and at first sight this looks as if certain items of his expenditure couldn’t reasonably be warranted.
‘The fact is, we’ve got lots of people finding it difficult to make ends meet with the cost of living and I think they’ll be concerned at repeated use of taxpayers’ money on what might be described as jaunts to exotic parts of the world.’
On Tuesday the Mail revealed the lavish scale of Sir Lindsay’s globe-trotting, with thousands of pounds spent on first class flights, limousine firms and five-star resorts, including in the Cayman Islands, Qatar and California.
He blew more than £180,000 of taxpayers’ cash on flights alone in just two years, with over £250,000 in total spent on 19 jaunts since October 2022.
In comparison John Bercow, his predecessor, took ten years to rack up the same bill for ‘non- regular’ foreign travel.
His expenses list, obtained exclusively by the Mail, shows how Sir Lindsay never travels in economy, always opting for first or business class seats. This was the case even for short-haul trips to Dublin and Italy.
He also chartered a private plane during a jaunt to the paradise Caribbean island of Montserrat, another British Overseas Territory.
As well as the £504 bill for luggage, further details of the staggering sums behind some of his claims can also be revealed.
But the small print shows how ‘£504 was paid to bring an extra suitcase onboard’ during the jaunt, which was also enjoyed by two of Sir Lindsay’s staff
A trip to Canberra in January 2023 to attend a conference of Commonwealth Speakers totalled more than £40,500.
This included more than £33,000 on First Class and Business Class flights with Qantas for him and two staff.
During a trip to Qatar to meet officials in September last year, he splashed nearly £11,000 on Business Class flights with Qatar Airways for him and two staff.
He stayed at the five-star beachside St Regis hotel in Doha during the trip, where he racked up one ‘subsistence’ bill for £811. The total cost of the trip was nearly £13,000.
In December 2023, Sir Lindsay billed taxpayers £5,000 – including £2,000 for BA Business Class flights – for a four-day jaunt to Gibraltar.
The visit was to attend a graduation ceremony at the University of Gibraltar, where he is chancellor. He took three members of staff with him.
His trip to Montserrat in March 2023 was to meet the island’s Governor and Speaker of its Parliament.
While flights and accommodation were apparently paid for by his hosts, he chartered private planes with carriers Trans Anguilla Airways and Fly Montserrat. His office has refused to say how much these cost.
Nearly £19,000 was also spent on Business Class flights to Jakarta and Singapore, more than £21,000 on fares to Tokyo and nearly £15,000 on Business Class tickets to Jordan.
The hotels and resorts Sir Lindsay stayed in were up to nearly £900 a night.
The list also shows that during a trip to Los Angeles in February 2023 he lavished more than £3,000 on chauffeur-driven cars.
He splashed more than £4,500 on chauffeur-driven vehicles during his trip to Canberra, Australia, a month earlier.
A spokesman for the Speaker said: ‘The baggage allowance on the Airlink flight from South Africa to St Helena was smaller than the London to Johannesburg leg, so the cost set by the airline for one suitcase had to be paid for separately.
‘The case contained necessary resources to support the trip.’
