THE Foreign Secretary’s choice to use the same luxurious private jet as the billionaire Roy family in the TV series Succession has been branded “ludicrous”.
James Cleverly has been utilising a £10,000 per hour Embraer Lineage 1000E jet - described as the “creme de la creme of private business jets” - during an eight-day tour of the Caribbean and Latin America, the Guardian reports.
The plush jet includes a lounge area with a big screen TV, a master suite for VIPs with a private bathroom, shower and queen-size bed.
The £40 million aircraft is a favourite of Succession’s Kendall Roy, and is the model featured in the fleet of corporate jet’s used by the billionaire TV family.
Labour branded the hire of the jet as “ludicrous extravagance” and said it showed how out of touch the Tories are with the public.
The Embraer Lineage 1000E has been described as the “ultimate statement of wealth” by Luxatic magazine, and as “one of the best luxury private jets money can by” by Business Insider.
It is now known how many officials and advisers have travelled with the Foreign Secretary, but the jet can hold up to 19 passengers and three crew.
Diplomacy conducted from the Colombian Amazon. What an introduction to Latin America. I couldn’t have asked for a better welcome from a more gracious host. Thank you, @AlvaroLeyva 🇬🇧🇨🇴 pic.twitter.com/pwXvTpPxE4
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) May 22, 2023
The Brazilian-built jet has been chartered by the Foreign Office from German VIP plane specialists Air Hamburg.
When the Guardian contacted the company for a quote on a 10-day round trip to Latin America, taking in two cities, the cost was estimated to be about €400,000 (£348,000).
Emily Thornberry, shadow attorney general, said that overseas travel is an essential part of the Foreign Secretary’s role.
“But it beggars belief that – at a time when British families are running out of ways to make ends meet – James Cleverly thought it was appropriate to conduct this tour in the kind of luxury jet used by billionaires and pop stars, with British taxpayers footing the bill,” she said.
“This sort of ludicrous extravagance at the public expense just shows how out of touch Rishi Sunak’s government are.
“No wonder their response to the cost of living crisis has been so utterly hopeless when they have such little concept of what ordinary life is like for people in our country.”
A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson said: “The foreign secretary’s job requires him to travel abroad to pursue UK interests. This was the most time-effective way to do this in this instance.
“Value for money is taken into account in all travel decisions and costs are regularly published for transparency.”
Cleverly has been tweeting pictures of himself from the Amazon at the start of the trip on Monday, which has also taken in Kingston, Jamaica, and Bogota and Cartagena in Columbia before heading on to Chile and Brazil.
Cleverly’s trip came as British embassies across the region prepared to celebrate 200 years of UK-Latin America relations, according to the FCDO.
