The Home Office is facing furious backlash as the Daily Express reveals it has a secret in-house beauty parlour offering civil servants cut-price massages, waxing, and manicures. The private salon is located within the Home Office’s Marsham Street building, and is not accessible to members of the public.
Opened in 2009, 2MS Beauty Clinic operates during work hours, allowing civil servants respite from the numerous crises facing the department. In a week in which migrant crossings over the Channel surpassed 25,000 this year, the Express can reveal for the first time that mandarins can enjoy Brazilian waxes from noon every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Fifteen-minute spray tans are also available for just £24.50, promising staff a tan “so natural that clients can continue their day and no one will know that they have had a spray tan”.
Swedish massages are on offer for as little as £18, with the beauty salon promising to help reduce “emotional and physical stress”.
Home Office staff also benefit from cut-price treatments, with other local alternative salons charging up to 50% more for the same treatments.
Mandarins preparing for a beach holiday can use their office hours to enjoy a Brazilian wax for just £25, while the nearest salon offering the same treatment to members of the public charges 70% more.
Another public beauty clinic on Horseferry Road, a three-minute walk from the Home Office, charges 25% more than their in-house centre for a 30-minute Swedish massage.
Anger at the revelation was compounded by news that this week the 25,000th small boat migrant entered Britain this year, the earliest in year that milestone has been reached.
Despite Labour’s pledge to “smash the gangs” and end small boat crossings, 900 migrants along entered Britain on Wednesday.
By contrast in 2024, the 25,000 milestone was not reached until the end of September.
The news was greeted with fury by the Taxpayers’ Alliance, which demanded an immediate end to the Home Office’s luxury pampering suite.
John O’Connell, the organisation’s chief executive, blasted: “It beggars belief that while the Channel is overrun with illegal crossings, Home Office bureaucrats are busy being pampered with massages, waxes and facials — all on the taxpayer’s time.
“This absurd perk should be axed immediately. Civil servants are paid to serve the public, not lounge around like they’re on a luxury retreat.”
Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf, who runs the party’s DOGE programme rooting out waste by local councils, fumed: “Long-suffering British taxpayers will be furious to find out that Home office employees, instead of stopping the invasion of illegal migrants, are spending their time treating themselves to luxurious spas and Brazilian waxes during work hours.
“Reform will cut the fat from government, secure our borders and put British people first.”
A government spokesperson said: “The Home Office has nothing whatsoever to do with the running or funding of this business, which has been part of the privately run fitness facilities in the basement of the 2 Marsham Street complex for more than fifteen years.
“Like any other shop or business operating within a multi-use office block, it is available for use by every individual who works there, which in the case of 2 Marsham Street means 4,500 employees of six government departments as well as all the contracted staff working on site.
“If civil servants wish to pay to use its services, they are free to do so like anyone else, but must only do so in their own time and not during their normal working hours, as has been the case under the successive governments which have been in place since this business opened.”