The conservative government has been under fire from opposition, as a Labour study “uncovers” the spending on government debit cards (GPCs) in 2021.
The Conservatives accused Labour of using the study as a ‘political stunt’, their Transport Minister, Richard Holden, stating that the spending data has been available to the public since 2012. On Good Morning Britain he claimed that Labour was simply ‘wasting’ resources by using civil servant to uncover monthly published information. Labour’s analysis, titled the GPC Files and amounting to 24 pages, focuses on every major government department of 2021 except the Ministry of Defence.
Amongst the expenditures were £344,803 spent by Foreign Office diplomats on “restaurants and bars”, a £7,218 reception for Liz Truss as a foreign secretary and a huge £59,155 spent by the Department of Health on stationery, all only in the month of March 2021. The last expenditure is shocking compared to only £1,470 spent for the rest of 2021. The 14 departments analysed spent around £145.5m on GPCs in 2021, while the same departments spent around £84.9m in 2010/2011. The analysis does not however account for inflation, which has averaged around 2.0% a year since between 2010 and 2021.
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, has been accused of hypocrisy, as she has spent over £2,000 on Apple products. Labour is also facing criticism for spending almost £1bn on the GPCs while in government in 2009. The criticism does not hold well, as Labour’s spending was across the entire public sector compared to the 14 government departments the analysis focused on. Adding on, Rayner defended her spending on Times Radio:
“I’m actually using the equipment right now as I’m speaking to you on the iPad.”
The debit card scheme was introduced by Labour back in 1997, under then Prime Minister Tony Blair, and has come under scrutiny in 2009 after a major expenses claims scandal. The GPCs are funded by taxpayers money and were introduced an easy way to make ‘low-value purchases’.
Labour’s promise is that, if in government, they would have “an Office of Value for Money upholding transparency and high standards for all public spending, including on government procurement cards”, according to Rayner. She also called the findings “a scandalous catalogue of waste” and pledged a future tough stance on it.
A conservative spokesman has said that the party has reduced the number of cards and required all spendings to be publicly declared, as a step towards further transparency.