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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
Mikey Smith

Government department spent £635 on repairs to a minister's red box

A Government department had to spend more than £600 repairing a ministerial red box.

The Department for Transport, which was run by Grant Shapps at the time of the repair in July, shelled out the eye-watering sum of £634.80 to fix a jammed lock on one of the official briefcases.

Simon Lightwood, Labour ’s Shadow Transport Minister, said: “From the rail chaos to the worst disruption at airports in living memory - everything Grant Shapps touches falls apart.”

“And just like the golden wallpaper and crony contracts, it's always the public who pick up the tab for Tory ministers.”

Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry asked Transport minister Jesse Norman why the expensive repair had been needed.

Grant Shapps was in charge of the department when the repairs took place (PA)

He replied: “The cost relates to a jammed lock and attendant repairs.”

Red Boxes are used by ministers to carry around secret government documents.

Barrow, Hepburn and Gale, the company that makes the boxes, is currently revamping the Government’s stock of boxes to change the royal cypher embossed on them from ‘EIIR’ to ‘CIIIR’, following the death of Queen Elizabeth.

The firm says some of the boxes still in use by ministers were originally supplied more than 30 years ago.

The boxes, which offer a higher level of security than a standard briefcase, can cost as much as £4,000 to purchase.

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