Keir Starmer cancels £40m private helicopter contract used by Rishi Sunak
27 August 2024, 20:03 | Updated: 27 August 2024, 21:12
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has cancelled a £40 million private helicopter contract that was frequently used by Rishi Sunak.
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Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had repeatedly come under fire for using the private helicopter to visit places which are easily accessible by public transport - such as Southampton, which takes an hour and a quarter to reach by train from London.
Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence have decided not to renew the contract when it ends on December 31.
It is understood that the decision is intended to highlight to the public how different the Labour party is from the Conservatives and draw attention to the actions of the previous government.
It comes after Sir Keir promised to "root out 14 years of Tory rot" as he defended the decision to means test the winter fuel payment in a speech on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister vowed the government will "do the hard work" in power, and claimed recent riots showed "the cracks in our society after 14 years of populism and failure".
Speaking from the rose garden, Keir Starmer defended his government's decision to means test the winter fuel payment, cutting support for millions of pensioners.
The PM also claimed his government has done more for the country in seven weeks than the Conservatives achieved in the last seven years.
Sir Keir said "things are worse than we ever imagined",.
He told a press conference: "In the first few weeks we discovered a £22 billion black hole in the public finances and before anyone says 'Oh this is just performative or playing politics' let's remember the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) did not know about it, they wrote a letter setting that out.
"They didn't know because the last government hid it and even last Wednesday, just last Wednesday, we found out that thanks to the last government's recklessness we borrowed almost £5 billion more than the OBR expected in the last three months alone. That's not performative, that's fact."
Read more: Keir Starmer defends scrapping winter fuel payments - as he warns autumn Budget will be 'painful'
His Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to raise taxes and cut public services this October, after warning that she had found a £22 billion "black hole" in the public finances she inherited from the Conservatives.
Her predecessor Jeremy Hunt denies this, and some economists have said Ms Reeves would have known about the state of Britain's finances before she came to power.
The speech and press conference, ahead of MPs returning to Westminster on Monday, marked an attempt by Sir Keir to manage expectations about the time needed to turn things around - he has previously spoken about the need for a "decade of national renewal", implying at least two terms of Labour rule.
"Next week, Parliament will return. The business of politics will resume, but it will not be business as usual," he said.
