Daily Mail: Government spends £200,000 on Cabinet away-day... to discuss Britain's financial crisis

The Government spent around £200,000 on taking every single member of the Cabinet out of London for one day, it emerged today.

An away-day in November the discuss the economic crisis cost the taxpayer almost £140,000 in policing costs alone, according to data released by West Yorkshire police.

The extra costs in a similar, earlier trip to Birmingham were £62,000 - meaning that if the same amount was spent in Leeds, the total visit cost taxpayers almost £200,000

Every Cabinet minister travelled to Leeds on November 28 for the summit, which including a closed meeting and public question and answer session.

A Freedom of Information request revealed West Yorkshire police spent £137,719 on security for the event, which did not include the costs of Special Branch officers.

Ministers insisted the event provided a one-off opportunity to bring leading ministers to the region to help save thousands of jobs in the financial sector.

But a Tory MP condemned the expense and claimed it should have been funded from Labour party coffers rather than by the taxpayer.

Shadow minister for Leeds and MP for Scarborough and Whitby, Robert Goodwill, said: 'While it is important for the Cabinet Ministers to visit Yorkshire itself and find out about our particular issues, holding the Cabinet meeting itself here  was a bit of a gimmick.

'The cost of hosting it given the increased security is something that should be borne by Labour rather than by the taxpayer.'

The meeting was designed to show the Government was listening to people outside London and to help them deal with the financial crisis.

On top of the security costs, there will have been bills for travel, venue hire, publicity, food and accommodation.

A third away-day is already scheduled for this Thursday in Liverpool at the end of a three-day tour of the regions by the Prime Minister to discuss the economic crisis.

Yorkshire Minister Rosie Winterton, who was instrumental in organising the Leeds summit, insisted it had been 'worthwhile'.

'Hosting this event gave us the opportunity of  getting the Prime Minister to Halifax and the Chancellor to Bradford & Bingley  to allow them to put forward the case for saving thousands of jobs in the region,' she said.

'We need to be positive about what we are doing in this region to tackle the problems caused by the economic downturn and prepare it for the future.'

But Mark Wallace, from the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'This is a massive bill for  the Government to land local taxpayers with. In future if they want to have the  PR benefit of meeting outside London they should foot the bill from a central budget.

'These meetings are expensive and of dubious worth to areas that the  Cabinet chooses to visit.'

West Yorkshire Police said it would seek to recover the costs of the visit from central Government.