Rishi Sunak takes taxpayer-funded flight inside UK every eight days

Frequency of PM’s RAF jet and helicopter trips outstrips every recent prime minister

Rishi Sunak has taken a taxpayer-funded private flights for travel in the UK once every eight days since he has been at No 10, new figures show.

The data revealed that Mr Sunak has already used RAF jets and helicopters for domestic journeys more frequently than any recent PM – after just seven months in office.

It comes as Greenpeace claimed Mr Sunak will “go down in history” as failing on climate change, amid fresh concern about the Tory leader’s frequent use of high-polluting travel and approach to net zero.

Mr Sunak boarded 23 domestic flights on RAF jets and helicopters aircraft across 187 days, almost one flight a week on average.

The frequency of the PM’s taxpayer-funded flights around Britain outstrips his immediate predecessors, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Theresa May.

Details of the RAF’s Command Support Air Transport domestic flights were revealed in a Ministry of Defence freedom of information release to the BBC.

Ms Truss enjoyed only four domestic flights in her 49 days in charge – once every 12 days. Mr Johnson took such trips every 20 days, while Ms May made these journeys once every 13 days.

Mr Sunak has defended his repeated use of private air travel to get around the UK, calling it the “most effective use of my time”, despite calls for him to use the train when equivalent journey times are possible.

Labour has also suggested that the PM’s RAF flight to Scotland to announce new oil and gas licenses may have broken the ministerial code, which states that private planes should only be used when there is no viable scheduled flight.

Rishi Sunak boards a plane at Stansted airport in Essex (PA)

A No 10 spokesperson said the PM and his ministers “sometimes require the use of non-commercial air travel”, calling it “standard practice for governments around the world”.

They added: “Value for money, security, and time efficiency is taken into account in all travel decisions and all flights are carbon offset.”

Meanwhile, Greenpeace has attacked the “unprecedented” move to block civil servants from having any contact with the group’s policy experts after an anti-oil protest at the PM’s Yorkshire home.

The campaign group’s directors told The Guardian that the briefings against them in the wake of the stunt – which saw activists drape a large oil-black fabric over his mansion – was “really dark stuff”.

Greenpeace activists on the roof of Rishi Sunak’s house (PA Wire)

An open letter from the organisation says government ministers and officials met BP 12 and Shell 11 times in only six months while ignoring green groups and climate experts.

The latest row comes as Mr Sunak comes under pressure from both environmentalists and net zero sceptics in his own party – with the Tory right pushing him to ditch policies which cost voters too much money.

Net zero sceptics want the PM to build on the success of the anti-Ulez by-election result in Uxbridge by scrapping Mr Johnson’s policy to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030.

He also faces a rebellion on the de facto ban on oil boilers from 2026, which mostly affects those living in off-grid homes in the countryside. Former environment secretary George Eustice described the policy as “Ulez for rural communities”.

But former energy minister Chris Skidmore, who led the government’s net zero review, said the decision to grant 100 new fossil fuel licences was “the wrong decision at the wrong time” and warned the PM that he risked being on the “wrong side of history”.

And Tory peer Zac Goldsmith told the BBC this week that he was “very tempted” to back Labour at the next general election because of the government’s failure to push on with its net zero commitments.