Mike Freer corrected a written answer on Ministry of Justice: Charter Flights

17 November 2022 · Commons written answer · Ministry of Justice

Steve Reed (Labour, Croydon North) asked written question 73001 on 27 October 2022. Mike Freer answered on 4 November 2022 for the Ministry of Justice, and Mike Freer corrected the answer on 17 November 2022. The correction replaced 3 figures (£543,907.12, £546,791.33, £563,624.12) with 1 figure (£22,895). Altogether 262 words differ between the two versions.

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much his Department spent on chartered flights for (a) ministers, (b) civil servants and (c) prisoners in (i) 2022 and (ii) since 2010.

Original and corrected answer

Struck through: original only. Bold: correction only.

Original	Corrected
~~Chartered~~ flights by spend - MOJ 2020 – 2021 \| £563,624.12 2021 – 2022 \| £546,791.33 2022 – YTD (Sept) \| £543,907.12 The MOJ ~~holds data for the last three years 2020, 2021 and 2022, however due~~ to the ~~system limitations~~ and ~~internal policies we are unable to break down the amount spent on Ministerial~~ travel ~~as Ministers~~ are not ~~considered employees~~ of the department. They are therefore not required to create accounts and book their own travel which can be monitored through our management reports. Instead, their travel is booked by Private Office employees and logged as guest users. Furthermore, any flights for ~~prisoners would not show on~~ the ~~MI that they are~~ for a ~~prisoner. We are therefore unable to break down prisoner travel for~~ the ~~same reason as Ministers due to not being employees of the department and not requiring accounts.~~	\| \| \| The answer given to the question on 4 November 2022 provided the spend on commercial flights by the MOJ, rather than the cost specifically of private charter flights. The MOJ does not monitor spend on private charter flights, because a very low volume of private charter flights are used. To provide an answer to the cost of private charter flights since 2010 would incur a disproportionate cost. Information for charter flights used by ministers during 2022 has been provided below. Private charter flights are occasionally used for prisoner repatriations and for travel by ministers and senior civil servants when suitable commercial flights are not available. In respect of the use of charter flights for ministers, during 2022, one private charter flight was used by the Deputy Prime Minister and nine officials for return travel to the Hague at a cost of £22,895. This was disclosed in transparency data at the time.

Original

Corrected

~~Chartered~~ flights by spend - MOJ
2020 – 2021
| £563,624.12
2021 – 2022
| £546,791.33
2022 – YTD (Sept)
| £543,907.12
The MOJ ~~holds data for the last three years 2020, 2021 and 2022, however due~~ to the ~~system limitations~~ and ~~internal policies we are unable to break down the amount spent on Ministerial~~ travel ~~as Ministers~~ are not ~~considered employees~~ of the department. They are therefore not required to create accounts and book their own travel which can be monitored through our management reports. Instead, their travel is booked by Private Office employees and logged as guest users.
Furthermore, any flights for ~~prisoners would not show on~~ the ~~MI that they are~~ for a ~~prisoner. We are therefore unable to break down prisoner travel for~~ the ~~same reason as Ministers due to not being employees of the department and not requiring accounts.~~

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The answer given to the question on 4 November 2022 provided the spend on commercial flights by the MOJ, rather than the cost specifically of private charter flights.
The MOJ does not monitor spend on private charter flights, because a very low volume of private charter flights are used. To provide an answer to the cost of private charter flights since 2010 would incur a disproportionate cost. Information for charter flights used by ministers during 2022 has been provided below. Private charter flights are occasionally used for prisoner repatriations and for travel by ministers and senior civil servants when suitable commercial flights are not available.
In respect of the use of charter flights for ministers, during 2022, one private charter flight was used by the Deputy Prime Minister and nine officials for return travel to the Hague at a cost of £22,895. This was disclosed in transparency data at the time.

The question and answer on the Parliament website.

Receipt

Read from	https://questions-statements-api.parliament.uk/api/writtenquestions/questions/1536844?expandMember=true
Date read	15 October 2026
SHA-256	`66b322ed58c2c382f39019f4ad8cd8e156383518d48d83f477ad474d7fe0f069`