Prime Minister Rishi Sunak flew from London to Cornwall despite being in the South West for a press conference the night before.

Downing Street confirmed the Prime Minister and his wife, Akshata Murty, used a plane to travel on Thursday morning for a visit at 9am to a family hub in St Austell.

The Conservative Party leader had been at Lulworth Camp in Dorset on Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where they met Ukrainian armed forces personnel being trained in Britain.

The pair then held a press conference together, which went on past 6pm.

Lulworth Camp is approximately a three-hour drive from St Austell.

But No 10 said Mr Sunak opted not to stay in the South West of England overnight, instead travelling by helicopter back to London.

He and his wife then used air travel to head down for their Cornish appointment the following morning.

The PA news agency understands the Prime Minister came back to Downing Street on Wednesday evening to attend meetings late on.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman, when asked about how Mr Sunak travelled to Cornwall, said: “He flew down this morning. I can’t say how he is getting back.”

Mr Sunak has previously come in for criticism for shunning train travel to get around the country and instead preferring to use private jets.

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Last month, he took a 28-minute flight across England to jet from Blackpool to Darlington, having already that morning taken a 41-minute trip from London to the Lancashire resort.

They were the latest in a series of short trips by air for the Prime Minister, having gone by plane to both Leeds and Scotland a week before.

Labour, at the time of his Blackpool to Darlington jaunt, accused Mr Sunak of “jetting around the country on taxpayers’ money like an A-list celeb” and making a “mockery” of his environmental strategy.