BBC blows £18million on taxis, hotels and trains in just three years

Since 2022, the corporation’s spending on travel and accommodation has risen by more than 30%, despite claiming to have “strict policies” in place to minimise costs.

Critics, including Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, have questioned whether this spending represents value for money - with £18m being the equivalent of the licence fee payments for over 100,000 people.

Hotel accommodation accounted for more than £9m of this spending; this included a week-long stay for one member of staff in Las Vegas at over £300 per night.

The corporation was also found to agree to seemingly exorbitant fares for short taxi trips.

One journey, for example, saw the BBC spend £288 for a taxi from Ruislip to central London - a distance of just 15 miles.

A 35-mile trip between London and High Wycombe set the corporation back a staggering £367.

The most expensive trip, a cab from Salford to Oxford, cost £484.

Spending on train journeys has also surged, reaching £2.8m in the financial year 2024/25.

'Within its means'

Speaking to LBC, Ms Badenoch suggested that the figures show the BBC needs to “live within its means”.

“I’m not sure how they’ve managed to spend so much,” Ms Badenoch said.

“Whether it’s the BBC or government departments, it is taxpayers who are paying for these services. If taxpayers have to tighten their belts, then everybody else should too.”

The disclosure is likely to lead to more scrutiny of the broadcaster, which is facing criticism for its expenditure and editorial standards.

Earlier this week, it emerged that the TV licence fee is set to increase to over £180 next year, in spite of millions of households continuing to bear the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis.

An additional 300,000 households elected not to pay the TV licence fee in 2024/25. It is believed the spiralling cost, alongside an increase in people using subscription services such as Netflix, has sparked this rise in licence fee evasion.

Meanwhile, the BBC has also come under fire for “doctoring” a speech by Donald Trump to make it more explicit that the US President had encouraged protestors to storm the Capitol on January 6th 2021.

The clip, which featured in an episode of Panorama broadcast just a week before the 2024 US election, spliced together two sections of the President’s speech delivered 54 minutes apart, leaving viewers with the impression that he had said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”

On top of this, the clip omitted the President saying he wanted protestors to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”.

The President’s son, Donald Trump Jr, has accused the corporation of dishonesty and propagating “fake news”.

Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee has also written to Samir Shah, the BBC’s chair, regarding the editing of the programme.

In a statement to The Telegraph, a BBC spokesperson said: “While we don’t comment on leaked documents, when the BBC receives feedback it takes it seriously and considers it carefully.”

Addressing the increasing spend on taxis, hotels and train journeys, a spokesperson told LBC: “As a 24-hour media organisation with offices around the world, we are inevitably going to incur travel costs.

"Rising prices across the travel and accommodations sectors in recent years, which have been impacted by rising inflation, have posed a challenge to many businesses.

"We continue to be mindful of how money is spent and have policies in place to ensure it is proportionate and appropriate.”