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James Cleverly spent £653 per person on in-flight catering for a one-day trip to Rwanda, it has been revealed.
Mr Cleverly, who was home secretary at the time, chartered a private jet for an 11-hour visit to Kigali to sign Rishi Sunak’s deportation deal.
The visit, which came after the supreme court ruled that Rwanda was an “unsafe country”, came to a total of £165,561.
The then home secretary made the trip alongside officials and a TV crew in December 2023 where he signed the new treaty with Vincent Biruta, Kigali’s foreign affairs minister.
The catering alone on the return flight cost a total of £9,803.20 for Mr Cleverly and his 14 officials, amounting to £653.55 a head, according to a freedom of information response seen by the Guardian. The TV crew paid for their own food.
Government officials told the Guardian the bill included the cost of transporting cooking equipment, which would also be accrued on a scheduled commercial flight.
The Rwanda Bill was overturned by the new Labour government within their first week in office, after Sir Keir Starmer dubbed it a “gimmick” and a “waste of money”.
Mr Sunak never successfully managed to get flights off the runway to Kigali after the legislation was bound up in legal challenges and opposition from MPs and peers.
Mr Cleverly, who was knocked out of the Tory leadership race after a vote of MPs earlier this month, also spent £22,324.50 on in-flight catering while travelling to Japan, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Zealand and Indonesia in July 2023, amounting to £1,488.30 per person.
The cost of flights to the five countries for Mr Cleverly and his 14 officials came to £561,531.04, according to the freedom of information request.
David Cameron, who took over from Mr Cleverly in the foreign office, travelled to the Falkland Islands, Paraguay, Brazil and New York in February 2024, incurring a catering bill of £20,809, or £1,095.21 a head.
The total cost of flights for Mr Cameron and 18 officials came to £470,275.43.
Meanwhile, former prime minister Boris Johnson incurred a bill of £2,210 on in-flight catering – or £245.55 per person – when travelling to the UAE for the funeral of Sheikh Khalifa, in May 2022 with an eight person entourage. The total flight cost came to £125,949.
Mr Cleverly’s office has been approached for comment. The Home Office declined to comment.
