Liz Truss has been hit by a bill of more than £12,000, which included items like bathrobes and slippers that went missing from her grace-and-favour country home.
The disgraced ex-Prime Minister has reportedly been ordered to reimburse the Cabinet Office after the items disappeared following “summer parties” she held at Chevening estate.
Ms Truss also needs to cough up the money for food and wine she and her aides tucked into as the meetings were political rather than state business, sources told the Mail on Sunday.
But her spokesman said Ms Truss has requested "an accurate invoice" before she agrees to pay up and he insisted the majority of the bill was for business meetings.
Ms Truss spent time holed up at the 17th Century manor in Kent last August ahead of her short-lived and disastrous time as PM.
The-then Foreign Secretary had surged ahead of Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership race and had started planning ahead for a win.
Sources said Ms Truss - who became the shortest PM in history after crashing the economy - used Chevening “as a mini No10, holding meetings with her inner circle which often turned into parties in the evening”.
The Cabinet Office has “objected to the idea that the taxpayer should foot the bill for what were basically a series of summer parties”.
A source told the MoS: “Liz used Chevening as a mini No 10, holding meetings with her inner circle which often turned into parties in the evening.
“The Cabinet Office was told by staff at the house that items such as towelling robes and even slippers vanished during that period, and have asked her to cover the cost.
“They have also objected to the idea that the taxpayer should foot the bill for what were basically a series of summer parties, and say she owes more than £12,000 for it.”
But her spokesman insisted that she always paid the cost for her personal guests.
The spokesman said: “The latest invoice contains a mixture of costs for her personally and costs for official Government business with civil servants including [Cabinet Secretary] Simon Case and senior officials from other departments who met at Chevening during the transition preparations.
“The latter constitutes the majority of the bill. It would be inappropriate for her to pay the costs for officials as it would have breached the Civil Service Code for civil servants to accept hospitality during the leadership campaign.
“She has therefore asked for this to be billed separately.”
A Government spokesperson said: "Costs and funding relating to Chevening House are a matter for the Chevening Trust.
"Where appropriate, we work closely with them to ensure costs incurred are allocated accordingly."
It is not the first row to come out of Ms Truss’s use of Chevening. In December traces of suspected cocaine were found in the house after parties attended by her guests last summer.
Staff working at Chevening - a retreat for Foreign Secretaries - told the Guardian they found traces of white powder on a side-table in a games room after two separate nights where Ms Truss entertained guests.
A member of staff claimed they tested the powder using a swab that changes colour when cocaine is present.
At the time, Ms Truss’s spokesperson said: “This is categorically untrue.
"If there were evidence that this alleged activity had occurred during her use of Chevening, Ms Truss would have expected to have been informed and for the relevant authorities to have properly investigated the matter.”
Chevening has been used as a grace-and-favour residence by the Foreign Secretary since 1981.
But a row emerged between Ms Truss and the-then Deputy PM Dominic Raab in 2021, who both staked a claim for use of a 115-room manor in a post Cabinet reshuffle bust up.
Downing Street agreed that Mr Raab and Ms Truss would share Chevening, a source confirmed at the time.
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