The House of Commons Speaker spent nearly £5,500 on private planes during a tour of the Caribbean, it has been revealed.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle used taxpayer money to charter three planes to travel between the islands of St Maarten, Montserrat, Anguilla and Antigua, according to the Daily Mail.
In total, Sir Lindsay spent more than £100,000 on sponsoring the Conference of Speakers of the UK House of Commons and Overseas Territories.
It has previously been reported that the taxpayer had forked out more than £275,000 to fund foreign trips for the Commons Speaker over the last two years.
But the details about the cost of the private planes was not listed in his official travel expenses log.
The Speaker’s Office said this was because some of the costs were allocated to the Clerk of the House, while some were included in the overall budget for sponsoring the conference.
It is understood he flew via St Maarten and then chartered a private plane for an “official visit” to Montserrat because there were no direct flights.
He then flew home via Antigua because there were no direct flights.
The Speaker is responsible for explaining and promoting the work of the House of the Commons and representing it at high-profile state events and inter-parliamentary conferences.
But data shows Sir Lindsay spent over £180,000 on flights and up to almost £900 per night on luxury hotels across 19 trips abroad between October 2022 and December 2024.
He has always opted for business or first class plane seats during his journeys, even when making short-haul flights to countries such as Ireland and Italy.
The spending included over £22,000 for a five-day trip to meet his counterpart in the Cayman Islands last year.
He stayed at the luxury Westin Grand on the famous Seven Mile Beach where his room was billed at £679 per night.
During a visit to Ottawa in 2023 to meet his Canadian equivalent he spent more than £8,500 on accommodation along with £15,000 on business-class flights for himself and two staff. His stay at the 4-star Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel cost almost £900 a night.
The MP for Chorley also shelled for stays at the luxurious St Regis in Doha and the Ritz-Carlton in Los Angeles.
Sir Lindsay is the most well-travelled Commons Speaker in history, according to the Daily Mail.
His predecessor John Bercow took 10 years to spend the same amount on “non-regular” foreign travel, the paper reported.
