ALARM was expressed last night that taxpayers have footed a bill of almost £400,000 for 12 fig trees, which keep MPs in the shade beneath a glass-roofed atrium at Westminster.

The original five-year deal for the trees, imported from Florida, was said to cost £150,000, but freedom of information requests have revealed the true cost has been £32,500 a year for the decade or so the trees have been keeping MPs shaded as they eat and drink in the modern Portcullis House.

This means the trees have cost at least £370,000.

Labour's Thomas Docherty, the Fife MP on the Commons Administration Committee, which oversees parliamentary facilities, said he was "gobsmacked" by the true cost of the fig trees.

"This contract was signed in a time of plenty but now it is not a time of plenty so this should be looked at," he said. "I don't think MPs will be aware of this arrangement and I will be asking questions about it as soon as we get back from the recess. It's astonishing."

His fellow Labour MP Kevan Jones, who is also on the committee, noted: "For this money, you could have planted a small forest. Like a lot of things done in the Commons, they get very little scrutiny."

The Taxpayers' Alliance, which uncovered the figures, said: "This opulent greenery is a monument to the parliamentary authorities' profligacy."