Labour don't give a fig

The Daily Mail reports that over £400,000 has been wasted on 12 fig trees for Portcullis House, which houses MP offices.

These fig trees were rented (not bought) and cost the tax payer £32,500 per year, or a total of £438,250 since they were planted there in 2001.




The trees were planted to provide shade for coffee bars and courtyard restaurants at Portcullis House.

Portcullis House itself cost the tax payer £235  million, £70 million more than the original budgeted cost of £165  million. That is more than £1  million for every MP based there.

John Lewis sell blinds from as little as £8. You would think that if John Lewis is good enough to be the bible for MP expenses it would be good enough for MP offices. Apparently not.

At £32,500 per year, each of the ~200 MPs who work at Portcullis House could buy 20 new blinds per year, or more than one new blind per month.



Labour MP Thomas Docherty said he was "gobsmacked" at the revelation, adding: "I don’t think MPs will be aware of this arrangement and I will be asking questions about it as soon as we get back from recess. It’s astonishing."

Labour MP Kevan Jones added "For this money you could have planted a small forest. Like a lot of things done in the Commons they get very little scrutiny."

I too was "gobsmacked" - not just about the waste of tax payer money, but by the fact that neither mentioned that Labour was in power in 2001 when the contract to rent the trees was signed.