When Conservative MP and former defence secretary Liam Fox launched a new charity initiative in June 2012 to provide free holiday accommodation to military families, it seemed to get off to a flying start. Within a month, Fox was announcing that “300 weeks or six years” of free accommodation had been secured already, and since then he and the charity, Give Us Time, have enjoyed the backing of aristocracy figures and glowing coverage in newspapers and society magazines.



Fox, who has just returned to the cabinet as the new international trade secretary, is now facing questions over the running of his charity and whether it has lived up to its ambitious goals.

BuzzFeed News can reveal that Give Us Time has helped fewer than 130 families in total in its first three years – less than half as many week-long trips as Fox said were donated in the charity's first month alone – giving away less than £110,000 of holiday stays in that time despite being awarded a £500,000 grant from the Treasury.

The charity’s accounts show it received the grant in November 2014, when it had just £4,405 in assets and had given away fewer than 40 free holidays. The Treasury award – which came from its “Libor fund”, raised from fines on banks – dwarfs the amounts the charity has raised from other sources, including in-kind donations of free accommodation from holiday companies and timeshare owners.

The charity still had £498,000 in its bank account in September 2015, according to its most recent filings.

The BuzzFeed News investigation has also established that the charity and one of its donors together funded a week-long trip to Bulgaria, including flights and accommodation, for two of Fox’s office staff – even though its policy was to not pay for the flights of the military families it was helping.

Tom Watson, the deputy leader of the Labour party, told BuzzFeed News Fox had to "urgently" address questions raised by the investigation.

"Liam Fox has questions to answer about the activities of Give Us Time," he said. "He must urgently explain why the charity he established apparently paid for two of his researchers to go on a week-long holiday. Dr. Fox must also explain why it arranged fewer than 140 holidays in the three years after it was set up in 2012 following his resignation from the Cabinet.

"The charity appears to have done very little until it received a £500,000 grant from a fund set up by the government to distribute fines paid by banks involved in the Libor scandal. The charities that support military families carry out valuable work but they must be open and transparent about how they spend public money. Liam Fox should now publish a detailed account of the amount Give Us Time has spent on holidays, along with a breakdown of other costs, including salaries paid to senior employees."



In a statement, Give Us Time said it was “solely dedicated” to helping service families by "providing them with holidays after long periods of separation, injury and other needs arising from their military service”. The charity added that “we learn and share best practice within the wider military charity sector” and "were extremely lucky to receive Libor funding to further the aims of the charity”.