James Cleverly spent £655 per head on in-flight for Rwanda trip

London: A Freedom of Information request has revealed that James Cleverly, during his tenure as home secretary, spent £655 per head on in-flight catering for a one-day trip to Rwanda. The total catering cost for the eight-and-a-half-hour return flight amounted to £9,803.20 for Cleverly and 14 officials.

Cleverly chartered a private jet for £165,561 to travel to Kigali on December 4 to sign a deportation deal, which has since failed to deport a single individual. The trip followed a Supreme Court ruling declaring Rwanda an "unsafe country." Accompanied by officials and a TV crew, Cleverly signed the treaty with Rwanda’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Vincent Biruta.

The catering bill includes transportation costs for cooking equipment, which would also apply on commercial flights, as well as food and drinks. Notably, the TV crew covered their own meals.

Cleverly, now the shadow home secretary, also incurred significant catering expenses during a July 2023 trip to Japan, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, New Zealand, and Indonesia, totaling £22,324.50 or £1,488.30 per head. The total flight cost for this trip reached £561,531.04.

His successor, David Cameron, racked up a catering bill of £20,809, or £1,095.21 per head, on a February 2024 visit to the Falkland Islands, Paraguay, Brazil, and New York. This trip for Cameron and 18 officials totaled £470,275.43.

In contrast, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson spent £2,210, or £245.55 per head, on in-flight catering for a May 2022 trip to attend the funeral of UAE President Sheikh Khalifa, with flight costs amounting to £125,949.

The Cabinet Office's data covers eight ministerial journeys from May 2022 to February 2024, excluding costs for journalists from major news outlets.  Cleverly's in-flight catering expenses have been significant across various trips: £807.77 per head in India (October 2022), £845.16 per head in Bahrain and Qatar (November 2022), and £737.18 per head in Indonesia (July 2023). His three-stop trip to the U.S. in July 2023 cost £1,020.51 per head.

A Labour source criticised the spending, stating, “Despite £700 million spent on the Rwanda scheme—including James Cleverly’s flight—Tories did not stop one small boat or deport a single person. Since the scheme’s introduction, 84,000 people crossed the Channel, and only four volunteers ended up in Rwanda. The Tories delivered nothing back to taxpayers for all the millions spent, but at least James Cleverly enjoyed some nice in-flight meals.”