Liz Truss splashed £500,000 of taxpayers' money on private flights in three months

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Tory leader accused of 'wasting taxpayers' money' as families struggle to pay bills

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Liz Truss defends the use of a private government plane to fly to Australia

Liz Truss spent £500,000 of taxpayers' money in three months using private government jets, according to new figures.

The Sunday Mirror revealed this week that the Tory leadership runner-up had flown more than 100,000 miles on the government's official plane during her nine months as Foreign Secretary.

But until this week the Foreign Office had not released the mammoth cost of its luxury flights - and even now the published data only goes to December 2021.

The Liberal Democrats have accused Liz Truss of 'wasting taxpayers' money' as people struggle to pay the bills.

Ms Truss spent £300,000 on private jets while traveling to Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia between 6 and 11 November 2021.

And she spent an additional £96,000 on a private jet to Saudi Arabia in October, and an additional £105,000 to the Baltics and Sweden in December.

A Truss campaign source defended his use of the official jet over the weekend, saying the onboard wifi and privacy enabled him to "work harder and harder".

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But she has been criticized for using the private plane, which includes comfortable, reclining seats, for flights that could be flown on commercial services.

Most recently, she used the VIP plane to fly to the G20 summit in Indonesia - only to cut her trip short and return directly to garner support for her bid to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister.

She only waited in Bali long enough for the jet crew to take their mandatory rest period before resuming the 6 p.m. flight to London to gain support for her campaign.

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The decision to leave the summit raised eyebrows among foreign diplomats, who saw it as an opportunity to challenge Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over the invasion of Ukraine.

Ministers are expected to use scheduled flights whenever possible in order to be 'cost effective'.