Ministerial Visits: Travel Costs

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the overall travel costs of ministerial visits within the United Kingdom during the first three months of 2015.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, visits are a key part of ministerial roles. The costs of ministerial visits within the UK are not held centrally and are a matter for individual departments.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that. He says that ministerial visits are very important. Perhaps he can help me with one such visit, on 30 January, by Claire Perry, the Rail Minister, to Hastings to attend a rail summit, as they called it, to promote the extension of the high-speed Javelin service from Ashford to Hastings. Apparently a special train was put on from Ashford to pick up other PPCs along the route, which, in my estimate, probably cost £50,000. The whole event was covered in Conservative Party posters and I do not imagine that anybody who was not a member of the party was there. Can he explain whether it is part of the ministerial duty to go canvassing like this? If it was paid for by the Department for Transport in whole or part, how will the Conservative Party reimburse it?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not, of course, aware of the incident to which the noble Lord refers. There are well established practices, which, as far as I am aware, have not changed under this Government, for dividing between ministerial roles and political activities that Ministers may undertake while visiting particular constituencies. Paragraph 10.14 of my 2010 copy of the Ministerial Code says:

“Where a visit is a mix of political and official engagements, it is important that the department and the Party each meet a proper proportion of the actual cost”.