Government spending £1.25m on airport lounges
04.05.08
The Government has spent more than £1.25m so that Whitehall officials and other dignitaries can enjoy luxury at Heathrow and Gatwick airport lounges, the People reports. According to the newspaper, the Foreign Office is making up to 100 bookings a week for airport VIP suites. It says that they cost £623 a time at Gatwick and £276 at Heathrow.
[NB: to quickly compare the cost of an airport lounge at Gatwick and Heathrow at four low cost suppliers, click on this link. They cost around £20 - so be sure to tell your MP too!]
Conservative shadow minister Mike Penning has discovered that the total bill for airport lounges has now topped £1,273,000. He said: ‘The number of bookings is phenomenal. The taxpayer needs to know why this is happening. It raises serious questions about whether this is good value for money.’
A spokesman for the Foreign Office told the newspaper that it needed the suites for departing Cabinet ministers with their officials, arriving heads of state, and the Royal Family.
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