Almost £10m of public money spent on subsidies for ex-prime ministers

Almost £10m of taxpayers' money has been spent on funding the public lives of former prime ministers over the past three decades, a Guardian analysis has found.

- Rob Evans Michael Goodier

All former prime ministers are able to claim up to £115,000 a year for life in a subsidy to enable them to contribute to public life after leaving Downing Street. The annual overall cost of the subsidy has more than doubled in recent years as there are more ex-prime ministers than in the past. Three - Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and John Major - have claimed more than £1m in the past decade.

Cabinet Office rules stipulate that the former prime ministers must not use these public funds for private or commercial activities. The payments are only intended to help them to continue contributing to public life.

However, the Guardian has published a series of stories based on the leaked data, which was obtained by the US non-profit Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS), that suggest Boris Johnson's office has been involved in widespread commercial work.

His office staff have helped vet and arrange more than 34 speeches, raising more than £5m in total, secure lucrative media contracts and work on business ventures in Venezuela, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia.