Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the total cost to the taxpayer of repatriating to the UK passengers of Monarch Airlines; and who were the top ten recipients.

The principal shareholder in Monarch Airlines is Petrol Jersey Limited with the Pension Protection Fund also holding a 10% stake. Greybull Capital is not itself a shareholder in Monarch Airlines but performs an advisory and management role for Petrol Jersey Limited.

There is no formal legal mechanism we can use to oblige Greybull to contribute towards the cost of repatriating passengers. However, Marc Meyohas, partner at Greybull has written^[1] to the Transport Select Committee acknowledging a moral obligation (if they make a profit) to contribute to other stakeholders including helping to defray the costs incurred by the Government in repatriating Monarch customers.

Our initial estimate was that the total costs of the repatriation operation will be around £60 million. We are currently unable to give a final figure as we are awaiting final invoices and cost recovery from third parties. We will be able to report in due course exactly how much the taxpayer has contributed and further detail on the recipients, where this information is not subject to a confidentiality clause.

We are focused on making sure that there is clear burden sharing of the repatriation operation, and that it is not only the government who pays.

We have entered into discussions with several third parties with the aim of recovering the costs of the repatriation operation. This includes Greybull Capital and relevant card providers and travel providers through which passengers may have booked flights. We will in due course be able to report back with more detail.

^[1] http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/transport/Response-from-Greybull-Capital-LLP-to-Chair-re-Monarch-Airlines-collapse-24-10-2017.pdf