Supreme Court justice’s £104 bill for 1.4 mile taxi

Members of the Supreme Court have had something of a wary relationship with ministers in recent years. Since the landmark Gina Miller verdict in January 2017 and then the unanimous prorogation case in September 2019, there have been various Tory rumblings in Westminster about moves to abolish, reform or simply rename the highest court in the land. 

Amid fears of an increasingly ‘activist’ court and accusations of bias, senior judges have been understandably jumpy about their future with current Supreme Court president Lord Reed claiming in March that any renaming would be ‘idiotic’ and ‘an act of national self-harm.’

So it was in this context that Mr S was surprised to read some of the expense claims being made by the members of the court who earn £226k a year. One in particular stood out to Steerpike: Supreme Court justice Lord Lloyd-Jones’s bill for taxis to and from the Buckingham Palace garden party in June 2018. According to a Freedom of Information request made by The Spectator, he claimed £55.80