Taxpayers spent more than £800,000 on the trip by Ed Miliband and his massive team to the UN climate summit.

New figures have revealed that 73 delegates from the UK’s net zero department attended COP30 in Brazil last autumn, led by Labour’s Energy Secretary.

Their plane travel alone cost the public £210,450, with £6,091 more spent on carbon credits to offset the emissions produced during the flights.

And they spent a staggering £600,740 renting private apartments during the two-week conference because prices had been hiked in host city Belém, along with £1,660 on hotel rooms.

Another £28,025 was spent on miscellaneous expenses by the delegation but the total cost will be higher as 13 of them have not yet put their claims in.

As the Mail revealed last year, Mr Miliband made two trips to Brazil for COP30 – at the start and end of the summit – and was spotted dining at a luxury restaurant at the top of the five-star Tivoli hotel in Belém. 

Sir Keir Starmer and his team from No 10 also went on a whistlestop trip to the summit, the costs of which have not yet been published.

It will add to anger at Mr Miliband, who has refused to help ease Britain’s sky-high energy costs – now rocketing still further as a result of the war in the Middle East – by allowing new drilling for oil and gas under the North Sea.

The COP30 summit was also branded a waste of time and money by some as it was boycotted by leaders from three of the world’s biggest emitters – the US, China and India – while the final text did not mention a commitment to phase out fossil fuels.

Even Mr Miliband admitted afterwards ‘it is true that Britain wanted more from this COP’, including a roadmap for the transition to renewable energy, but ‘this didn’t happen because some countries would not agree’.

He described the experience of attending the summit in the Amazon rainforest as ‘sweaty, maddening, sleepless’.

Callum McGoldrick, investigations campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance who obtained the costs under the Freedom of Information Act, said: ‘Hard-pressed taxpayers will be utterly furious to see a whole brigade of bureaucrats flown to Brazil at their expense.

‘Forking out more than £600,000 just to put them up in private apartments is a staggering waste of public money. The fact that this eye-watering bill is still climbing as more expenses are claimed just adds insult to injury.

‘The Government should stop sending so many civil servants jet-setting around the globe to lecture the rest of us on emissions, especially when the cost is so high.’

Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho said: ‘Ed Miliband has been jacking up the cost of a family holiday with new flight taxes whilst his team rack up huge bills flying around the world to lecture us all about climate change. The hypocrisy of the Net Zero cult knows no limits.’

Sources insisted that the UK took a smaller delegation to Brazil than to previous COP summits to reduce spending.

The Government also secured private sponsorship to cover the cost of the UK pavilion and Delegation Office at the event.

A spokesman for Mr Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: ‘The UK delegation at COP30 was crucial in driving forward a historic roadmap with 80+ countries to transition away from fossil fuels, boosting energy and climate security for the British people.

‘We make no apologies for ministers and officials travelling around the country and abroad, fighting for investment, jobs, energy security and action on the climate crisis for Britain.’ 

The figures published today do not cover the whole cost of the UK’s involvement at COP30, however.

In total the official register of delegates published by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which organises the annual summits, shows that more than 200 were registered to attend from the UK.

As well as Mr Miliband, the list included his junior minister Katie White and environment minister Mary Creagh.

Among other MPs who attended were Dame Emily Thornberry who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, former development minister Anneliese Dodds and Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee Toby Perkins.

There were also more than 50 policy officials for various Whitehall departments, senior figures from ministerial private offices and diplomatic staff from the British embassy in capital Brasilia.

Also on the list was UK Special Representative for Climate Rachel Kyte, who was pictured dining with Mr Miliband during the summit.

It emerged last year that she had been on more than a dozen flights, most of them business class, since taking up her role despite admitting her carbon footprint was a ‘source of deep discomfort’.

And the net zero department’s ministers have flown more than six times round the world since taking office with Mr Miliband personally clocking up more than 50,000 air miles on nine trips.