Sunny asked if I could cross post this investigative article from the Ministry, which examines the use of a private jet, owned by Lord Ashcroft, by Conservative ministers (specifically William Hague) and raises questions about whether these flights are being correctly reported to the Electoral Commission in line with current laws on the reporting of donations.

(The short answer to all this is that it appears that a grey area in law is being exploited to allow the value of these flights to be massively underreported and, as a bit of bonus, an FOIA request I made in January caught Hague making late registrations, more than a year late in one case.)

I’ve given it a bit of thought and I’m not going to cross post the full article – you can all follow the link and read it if you’ve a mind to, although I’d have a cup of coffee and a sandwich to hand as there’s really no short way to do investigative articles which rely on collating and presenting evidence. Instead of repeating myself over here I’ve decided, instead, to extend on from the information in that article and have a crack at demonstrating conclusively that something more than a bit iffy is going on.

The Backstory – A Quick-ish Synopsis.

The background here is that since at least 1997, when Peter Lilley was provided with free use of a private jet by Lord Ashcroft, a number of Tory ministers have had the benefit of using a Dassault Falcon 900EX long-range corporate jet, owned by Flying Lion Limited (which is owned by Ashcroft) when making overseas visits. Under PPERA 2000, these flights have to registered with the Electoral Commission as donations and assigned a cash value as follows:

4.15 In cases where regulated donees do not receive a cash donation to meet the cost of a visit because the costs are met by the host organisation or individual, they should calculate the notional value of the trip, based on the equivalent commercial travel and accommodation costs.

And therein lies the grey area – what does ‘equivalent commercial travel’ mean? The cost of a scheduled flight on the same route, or the cost of chartering a similar private jet to make the flight?

This makes a hell of difference, for example, a return flight to Prague (business class) costs around £700-800, which is below the £1,000 limit at which such a donation would have to be reported. A chartered flight private jet to the same destination comes in at an estimated £9,000 and as the flying distances increase so the differential rises. One trip taken by William Hague, which took in Iceland, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Belize, Panama, Brazil and the Falkland Islands was reported as a donation of just under £9,000. To charter a private jet to fly the same itinerary would cost around £270,000.

You should be able to see, just from this quick synopsis, why this has attracted a bit of attention amongst a few bloggers, like myself. The total reported value of flights donated by Flying Lion to the Conservative Party since 2002 runs to, currently, around £170,000 but, if you take equivalent commercial value to mean the value of a private charter rather than a scheduled flight then a conservative estimate of the true value of these flights would be in the region of £1.2-1.7 million. Bit of a difference, eh?

What evidence is there that the value of these flights are being underreported?

Thanks to an earlier FOIA request, in relation to a flight to Uganda in 2005, provided to Andrew Mitchell MP, we know how Conservative MPs have been going about the business of valuing these flights and Mitchell responded to a request for the cost of this flight as follows:

Thank you [Electoral Commission] for your letter dated 1 July 2005. The easiest way to cost the flight to Uganda provided by Flying Lion Ltd would be to take the cost of a first class flight. We have checked what the cost would be under Emirates; this would be £2,667 return per passenger.

That may well be the ‘easiest way’ but the easiest way is not necessarily the right way – the estimated cost of a chartered jet flight (return) is currently £66,000 and if we cut the price in half to reflect the fact that the costs of aviation fuel have rocketed over the last couple of years then we’re still coming in at 10 times the value suggested by Mitchell – this being what actually appears on the Electoral Commission’s register.

But does this prove that the value of these flights is being under-reported?

On its own, no. There is no reason why Flying Lion Limited couldn’t, at least, claim that they would actually charge only the equivalent of a First Class ticket on a scheduled flight.

There are, however, a couple of fairly straightforward methods of demonstrating, conclusively, that the actual cost of these flight is being massively under-reported to the Electoral Commission, and to show this we have to think not in terms of notional value of the flights but in of the actual costs incurred by Flying Lion in ferry round Conservative ministers, particularly the cost of aviation fuel.

In November 2007, Mitchell took another trip by Flying Lion, this time from London to the Turks and Caicos Islands, Georgetown (Guyana) and then on to Bolivia before returning to London – a round trip of around 13,200 miles.

The quoted range of the jet owned by Flying Lion, a Falcon 900EX is 4,598 miles on a full tank of fuel (3000 gallons), which, after a bit of maths to get everything into litres gives an estimated fuel consumption for the trip of 22756 litres of aviation fuel, fuel which cost, last November, around 60p per litre plus VAT. Tot that all up and you get an estimated cost for Mitchell’s flight, in fuel alone, of £15928.

Or you can put it another way because the running costs of jet aircraft are usually estimated on the basis of a cost per flight hour which includes the costs of fuel and apportioned costs for maintenance, parts, insurances and other ancillary costs (but not the costs of employing flight crew, a maintenance technician and things like hangering, liability insurance, etc which are quoted as an estimated fixed cost of $653,000 a year, provided that Ashcroft pays the going rate).

The quoted cost per flight hour of Ashcroft’s Falcon 900EX is $2,493 per hour and the estimated total flying time for Mitchell’s tour of the Caribbean and South America is 13.12 hours, giving a total flight cost for the trip of $32,700 and as exchange rates are running at 2 dollar to the pound, well call it £16,350, which is pretty well in line with the estimated fuel costs for the flight.

On this occasion, Mitchell recorded a donation, with the Electoral Commission, of £7,305.13, about 45% of the flight cost – remembering that that cost doesn’t include an apportionment of the Flying Lion’s fixed costs and that Mitchell’s reported figures for the trip may include the costs of accommodation and everything else that goes with making an overseas visit.

In short, not only are these flights being substantially undervalued in terms of their ‘equivalent commercial value’ but they’re also being undervalued, by at least 50%, and probably much more when you start to factor in the various ‘extras’ that go with running a private jet, when compared to what it actually costs Flying Lion Limited to provide these flights.

So what happens next?

As I understand matters, concerns about the reporting of flights provided by Flying Lion were raised with the Electoral Commission, last year, and this additional information will be forwarded to the individual who raised this matter for inclusion in any evidence they present to the Commission.

About the author
'Unity' is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. He also blogs at Ministry of Truth.
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