British taxpayers can well “afford” to contribute to the estimated £10 million cost of Baroness Thatcher's funeral, the Foreign Secretary William Hague said this morning, as MPs and peers gathered to debate her legacy.
Both Houses of Parliament will meet this afternoon in special session to allow tributes to be paid to the former prime minister.
MPs that were abroad at the time of her death and wanted to attend will be able to claim up to £3,750 to reimburse the cost of flying back.
But Mr Hague, who was backed by Baroness Thatcher when he ran successfully for the party leadership in 1997, said the cost of funeral arrangements and other associated expenses were entirely appropriate considering what the former prime minister had contributed to Britain.
Speaking on BBC One's Breakfast programme, Mr Hague said: “It's right Parliament meets and commemorates such a leader of historic proportions in our country's history.
“She changed the course of our history and there have been many comments over the last few days from all corners of the political spectrum.
“When it comes to money, the rebate she negotiated for this country from the EU has brought us so far £75bn - which is twice the size of our annual defence budget.
“I think that puts money in perspective... so I think we can afford to contribute to a funeral.”
Full story: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/taxpayers-can-well-afford-...
Did anybody watch her funeral then?
Shocking isn't it! I dont't understand how you can spend so much on a funeral, and this wasn't even a full state funeral! The money could've been to much better use.
Nope I didn't watch it.
"How many people find fault in what they're reading and the fault is in their own understanding" Al Mutanabbi
Thatcher's funeral was bound to be a big deal but, hang on - that is very expensive. It doesn't sound right. What have you got? Flowers, a coffin, admin, some priests and that (if priests cost, idk) and I guess the overwhelming bulk is for security. Security is an unknown but I can't imagine the figure being more than a couple mil, which is still a lot but then she was the PM and her family is covering the coffin and flowers.
Apparently it didn't cost anything like that. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/17/margaret-thatcher-funeral-cos...
We were made to watch the funeral for 20 minutes and i laughed when i saw everyone singing along besides those three Arabs in a row and the one that was three rows behind them. Everyone else was moving their mouth and they looked down and their lips didn't even move at all, lol.
I understand that she was the first female prime minister and that she'd won three elections, but to be honest, that's all i know about her. She wasn't around and i don't feel as though her actions and decisions have affected me directly, but i could say that for David Cameron for example.
The government is always talking about cuts being made in departments that actually need it, well can you blame them? Look at what sort of things they've been using it on. With that £10m (according to The Guardian), we could have paid for 322 nurses for a year, or 272 secondary school teachers for a year, or 320 fire officers for a year, or 7042 households' electricity and gas bills for a year, or even 25773 households' annual water bills. It could've been put to better use in my opinion.
Do you think that if Labour were in charge, they would have done the same for Margaret Thatcher?