David Davis demanded the right to avoid commercial flights for foreign travel shortly after he was appointed

David Davis fell out with his most senior civil servant after he blocked him from using a private RAF plane to travel around Europe for Brexit negotiations.

Mr Davis demanded the right to avoid commercial flights for foreign travel shortly after he was appointed. He had to appeal to No 10 after Oliver Robbins, his permanent secretary and the government’s chief Brexit negotiator, kept blocking his flight requests.

Mr Davis appealed to Mrs May’s chief of staff, who approved the expense after he said he would not do the trips unless he got his way. Since then he has repeatedly used RAF transport, which costs up to five times as much.

Details are in Fall Out by Tim Shipman, political editor of The Sunday Times