Pope visit figures just don’t add up

The Government has released what it says is the total amount paid out by the taxpayer on the visit of the pope last September. Apparently it was only £6.9 million (rather than the £10.2 million they had projected).

The figures provided by the Government take no account of policing and security costs or the costs to local authorities, which are substantial and mounting.

The Government also paid £6.3 million up front on behalf of the Catholic Church, which the Church says it will repay by 1 March (and we’re watching to ensure that it does). As far as we know, no interest is being charged on this massive six-month loan.

But the figures provided by the Government take no account of policing and security costs or the costs to local authorities, which are substantial and mounting. Nor do they take into account the money spent on the one-day visit to Scotland. So, let’s see what wasn’t on the Government spreadsheet.

The Scottish Government this week revealed, for instance, that it spent £800,000 (£85,000 per hour that the pope was in the country). This does not include the final bills for Edinburgh or Glasgow councils or the policing.

So far, Edinburgh has announced that it spent £300,000, while the NSS has discovered, through an FoI enquiry, that Lothian and Borders Police spent £543,000, employing 900 officers for the few hours that the pope was in the city. The Strathclyde Police, who covered the Glasgow element of the visit spent £649,000, using 1,116 officers.

The West Midlands police spent £280,000; Birmingham City Council spent £82,000; Warwickshire Police spent £80,000 on planning a mass at Coventry Airport that was subsequently cancelled. The Metropolitan Police’s initial estimate (likely to be more) is £1.8 million.

The cost to the security services is unlikely ever to be discovered, although it is sure to be a massive amount.

On 1 September 2010, just two weeks before the Pope was due to arrive, the Government and the Church reached an agreement whereby the Foreign Office would pay a majority of the costs of the visit up front and would later be reimbursed by the Church. Under this agreement the Church has until 1 March to pay around £6.3m. On top of this figure, however, the Church in England, Wales and Scotland also paid £3.8m in costs it incurred independently.

Originally, the Church said its side of the cost would be £7m; however, this figure crept upwards as the visit got closer. The figures show that both Church and State had to pay over £100,000 each on “pre-visit venue location and research costs” which includes the costs incurred for changing the venue of Cardinal Newman’s beatification from Coventry Airport to Cofton Park, Birmingham.

The final figure for the Church stands at £10.1m and the total cost of the visit for both State and Church £16.1 million. The cost for the taxpayer from other sources, though, is considerably higher.

According to the documents, the major costs for the Church included £4.4m for the “beatification Mass” at Cofton Park – the high cost was due to the need to construct a stage and site from scratch; £1.1m for the prayer vigil at Hyde Park; and £385,000 for the education event at St Mary’s, Twickenham (south west London).

On the state’s side, the major cost was more than £3m for media centre facilities at all venues during the visit – presumably to ensure that the Vatican was able to make maximum propaganda from the visit. Also, the taxpayer paid for accommodation for members of the papal entourage. The hangers-on, known as the “seguito”, stayed at the five-star Goring Hotel in central London at a cost of £17,500 and were treated to a banquet that cost the state more than £18,000.

A statement issued by Papal Visit Ltd, the company set up by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and that of Scotland, said it had raised a total of £7.5m. A spokesman said the outstanding £2.6m would be taken up and underwritten by the dioceses, which would need to pay the money by October 2012.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “These Government figures are very revealing. What on earth is the state doing using £1,673,000 of scarce taxpayers’ money to stage a “beatification ceremony”? Or £327,000 on a “prayer vigil”? Or £264,000 on a mass? What business is it of the state to provide such events? Surely these religious services should have been the entire responsibility of the Catholic Church? And why is no interest being charged on the £6.3 million loan to the Church? UK Citizens would receive no such mercy from HM Revenue and Customs if they were even slightly late with their tax payments.”