Labour condemns ‘culture of lavish spending’ under Rishi Sunak as party report reveals govt debit card purchases
Rishi Sunak has been accused of failing to rein in a “culture of lavish spending” across government departments as Labour published details of thousands of purchases over the past two years on taxpayer-funded debit cards.
The opposition party’s report on Government Procurement Cards (GPCs) showed 14 departments spent at least £145.5m in 2021 compared with the £84.9m spent a decade before, an increase of 71.38% in 10 years.
It follows the rules around GPCs being relaxed at the start of the COVID pandemic, with card holders able to spend up to £20,000 per transaction and £100,000 a month across all spending categories.
Labour said the increase in spending was driven by the Ministry of Justice, which went from spending £36.9m a year in 2011 to £84.9m in 2021.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s spending was 3.7 times higher in 2021 – at £34.4m – than the Foreign Office and Department for International Development’s combined spending of £9.3m a decade prior, according to the report.
Nine of the 14 departments analysed spent more in the last month of the financial year than any other month of the year, with overall GPC spending more than two-thirds higher in March 2021 than the monthly average for the rest of the year.
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Labour also found there were 34,661 transactions of over £1,000 in 2021 across the 14 departments.
The party named the largest suppliers to departments through GPCs in 2021 too – they included: Banner Stationery (£3.3m); Amazon (£1.51m); Enterprise-Rent-a-Car (£414,785); IKEA (£237,683); Posturite Chairs (£131,652); John Lewis (£105,832); KPMG (£105,014); and Apple (£101,467).
It said the biggest was BFS Group, which provides food supplies to the Prison Service, with sales over £500 worth an overall £54.9m.
Labour plan to ‘get tough on waste’
Labour said it was concerned about “lax controls” over GPCs and “unchecked spending sprees engaged in by multiple departments across Whitehall at the end of each financial year”.
It claimed there was “excessive spending” on “extravagant events, expensive restaurants, high-end catering, five-star hotels, lavish gifts and hospitality, luxury furnishings and fabrics, unnecessary corporate branding, non-essential training, high-priced awayday venues, and the purchase of alcohol at taxpayers’ expense”.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner said the spending was not appropriate during a cost of living crisis.
She told Sky News: “We’ve seen scandal and we’ve seen sleaze, we’ve seen billions of pounds wasted under the Conservative government that we have now, and no action to clear up this mess.
“[These] cards are a way of bypassing the normal auditing process. And we see when it comes to the end of the financial year, big jumps in the spend and we’ve seen expenditure which is just not justifiable during the cost of living crisis.
“So there has to be transparency and there has to be regulation of the use of these cards.”
Ms Rayner said her party would create an “Office of Value for Money” to “get tough on waste”.
“Britain may be facing the worst cost of living crisis for decades, but whether as chancellor or prime minister, Rishi Sunak has failed to rein in the culture of lavish spending across Whitehall on his watch,” she said.
“Today’s shocking revelations lift the lid on a scandalous catalogue of waste, with taxpayers’ money frittered away across every part of government, while in the rest of the country, families are sick with worry about whether their pay cheque will cover their next weekly shop or the next tranche of bills.”
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Tories hit back at Labour report
Transport minister Richard Holden defended the use of the cards, telling Sky News: “If everything had to be invoiced, you know, you can’t actually do stuff that you need to do and it can be more expensive and add more bureaucracy.
“I don’t think what we should do is introduce more bureaucracy, a sort of Jim Hacker style department of Administrative Affairs to administrate the other administrators, which seems to be Labour’s proposal.”
However, he agreed about the need for transparency over the spending, pointing to the monthly report on what is spent on the cards.
“Sunlight is a great disinfectant for this sort of stuff,” added Mr Holden. “And so I think that’s why it’s so important that we’re as transparent as possible with what the government spends.”
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A senior Conservative source hit back harder at the Labour report, saying: “Awkwardly for Labour HQ they’ve forgotten that they introduced these ‘civil servant credit cards’ in 1997.
“By 2010 Labour was spending almost £1bn of taxpayers’ money on everything from dinners at Mr Chu’s Chinese restaurant to luxury five-star hotels.
“The Conservatives swiftly stopped their absurd profligacy, cutting the number of cards, introducing a requirement for spending to be publicly declared and introducing controls.
“Typically, Labour’s ‘big idea’ is to spend millions to establish yet another quango, stuff it with thousands of bureaucrats and give them gold plated pensions.”
Specialist search teams, police dogs and divers have been dispatched to find two sisters who vanished in Aberdeen three days ago.
Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32, were last seen on CCTV in the city’s Market Street at Victoria Bridge at about 2.12am on Tuesday.
The siblings were captured crossing the bridge and turning right onto a footpath next to the River Dee in the direction of Aberdeen Boat Club.
Henrietta Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Eliza Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Police Scotland has launched a major search and said it is carrying out “extensive inquires” in an effort to find the women.
Chief Inspector Darren Bruce said: “Local officers, led by specialist search advisors, are being assisted by resources including police dogs and our marine unit.”
Aberdeenshire Drone Services told Sky News it has offered to help in the search and is waiting to hear back from Police Scotland.
CCTV of the sisters. Pic: Police Scotland
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The sisters, from Aberdeen city centre, are described as slim with long brown hair.
Police said the Torry side of Victoria Bridge where the sisters were last seen contains many commercial and industrial units, with searches taking place in the vicinity.
The force urged businesses in and around the South Esplanade and Menzies Road area to review CCTV footage recorded in the early hours of Tuesday in case it captured anything of significance.
Drivers with relevant dashcam footage are also urged to come forward.
CI Bruce added: “We are continuing to speak to people who know Eliza and Henrietta and we urge anyone who has seen them or who has any information regarding their whereabouts to please contact 101.”
Glasgow has been a city crying out for solutions to a devastating drugs epidemic that is ravaging people hooked on deadly narcotics.
We have spent time with vulnerable addicts in recent months and witnessed first-hand the dirty, dangerous street corners and back alleys where they would inject their £10 heroin hit, not knowing – or, in many cases, not caring – whether that would be the moment they die.
“Dying would be better than this life,” one man told me.
It was a grim insight into the daily reality of life in the capital of Europe’s drug death crisis.
Scotland has a stubborn addiction to substances spanning generations. Politicians of all persuasions have failed to properly get a grip of the emergency.
But there is a new concept in town.
From Monday, a taxpayer-funded unit is allowing addicts to bring their own heroin and cocaine and inject it while NHS medical teams supervise.
A dirty needle thrown less than 100 metres from the new injection centre
It may be a UK-first but it is a regular feature in some other major European cities that have claimed high success rates in saving lives.
Glasgow has looked on with envy at these other models.
One supermarket car park less than a hundred metres from this new facility is a perfect illustration of the problem. An area littered with dirty needles and paraphernalia. A minefield where one wrong step risks contracting a nasty disease.
Drugs paraphernalia in a supermarket car park in Glasgow, near the new facility
It is estimated hundreds of users inject heroin in public places in Glasgow every week. HIV has been rife.
The new building, which will be open from 9am until 9pm 365 days a year, includes bays where clean needles are provided as part of a persuasive tactic to lure addicts indoors in a controlled environment.
There is a welcome area where people will check in before being invited into one of eight bays. The room is clinical, covered in mirrors, with a row of small medical bins.
Clean needles are provided to lure addicts to inject in a controlled environment
There are eight bays users can inject in
We were shown the aftercare area where users will relax after their hit in the company of housing and social workers.
The idea is controversial and not cheap – £2.3m has been ring-fenced every year.
The aftercare area
Read more: ‘Dying would be better than my £1,000 a month heroin addiction’
Authorities in the city first floated a ‘safer drug consumption room’ in 2016. It failed to get off the ground as the UK Home Office under the Conservatives said they would not allow people to break the law to feed habits.
The usual wrangle between Edinburgh and London continued for years with Downing Street suggesting Scotland could, if it wanted, use its discretion to allow these injecting rooms to go ahead.
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The stalemate ended when Scotland’s most senior prosecutor issued a landmark decision that it would not be in the public interest to arrest those using such a facility.
One expert has told me this new concept is unlikely to lead to an overall reduction in deaths across Scotland. Another described it as an expensive vanity project. Supporters clearly disagree.
The question is what does success look like?
The big test will be if there is a spike in crime around the building and how it will work alongside law enforcement given drug dealers know exactly where to find their clients now.
It is not disputed this is a radical approach – and other cities across Britain will be watching closely.
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