`Freebies' for MPs rise 60% in a year

MPS' SPENDING on foreign trips rose by almost 60 per cent in the year after Labour came to power, new figures have revealed.

The boom in information-gathering visits, otherwise known as "freebies", has led to calls for new guidelines to ensure the money is not misspent. Some MPs want Lord Neill's Committee on Standards in Public Life, which islooking at MPs' conduct as part of a wider inquiry, to take up the issue.

The cost of select committees' trips abroad rose from pounds 590,000 in 1996/97 to pounds 936,000 in 1997/98 - an increase of 58.6 per cent. Visits within the UK took an even bigger hike, rising by 89 per cent, from pounds 92,000 to pounds 174,000.

Among the MPs' destinations were Argentina, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Paris and Las Vegas. The most expensive trip cost pounds 71,000, and took 11 members of the Culture, Media and Sport committee to the US for four days as part of an inquiry into broadcasting regulations.

Other committees were able to squeeze more days and more destinations from their spending allocations. A three-pronged Foreign Affairs committee trip took in Thailand, The Philippines, Quatar, Kuwait, Israel, Kenya and Uganda and lasted a week. It cost pounds 51,500 in total for 11 MPs and three staff. When three groups of MPs from the committee spent five days in Poland and Estonia, the Czech Republic and Hungary and Cyprus and Slovenia as part of an inquiry into European Union enlargement, the bill came to pounds 23,472.

Nearer home, trips proved surprisingly expensive. An overnight trip to Brussels for one MP and one member of staff from the Foreign Affairs committee cost an estimated pounds 1,250. When a delegation of four from the Accommodation and Works committee visited Greenwich, a pounds 10 taxi ride from Westminster, to view a mock-up of an MPs' office, the bill came to pounds 145.

The new Labour government set up several extra committees after the general election, taking the total number from 32 to 36. But this does not fully explain the rise in spending on days and weeks away from the Commons. The increase in trips was much greater than that for total committee spending, which rose by one third in the year after the election, from pounds 1.5m to pounds 2m. Three-quarters of the overall spending rise was accounted for by trips.

Dr Ian Gibson, Labour MP for Norwich North, said that while most trips were useful there was a need for clear rules so that the public could see that the money was being properly spent. "This is an area where we should have absolutely clean hands," he said.

"The Neill Committee should have a look at this and give us firm guidelines on the circumstances under which we should go, and those guidelines should be made public. People need to understand why MPs go on these trips."

Robert Sheldon, Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne and chair of the Liaison Committee, which allocates spending for the visits, said each committee had to make a clear case why it needed the money before the funds were approved. "I think they are extremely useful," he said. "I wasn't convinced that all of them were of great value in the past, but I think they are now.

"There isn't such a rush to go abroad now because people are more blase about it. But there are more international comparisons to be made about what we do."

The Neill committee will begin hearing evidence in public next month as part of a follow-up to its first report, published in 1995. It is concentrating on the conduct of MPs, ministers and civil servants, and will also look at the roles of special advisers and lobbyists in the wake of last year's "cash for access" affair, where MPs were said to have been paid to ask questions the Commons.

Trips Abroad: Where Your Representatives Went And What It Cost

Culture, Media and Sport: Trip to Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles to look at audiovisual communications and the regulation of broadcasting. Cost (11 MPs, two staff for four days): pounds 71,026

Las Vegas, for the same purpose. Cost (one MP for four days) pounds 5,370.28.

Education sub-committee: Visit to Switzerland, to learn about the role of headteachers. Cost (seven MPs, two staff): pounds 9,736.

Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs: A visit to Cancun, Mexico, for global forum on habitat. Cost (one MP for three days): pounds 4,199.

Foreign Affairs: A three-part visit to Thailand and the Philippines; Quatar, Kuwait and Israel; Kenya and Uganda, to look at human rights.

Cost (one group of five members and two of three, each accompanied by a member of staff, each travelling for one week): pounds 51,504.

Health: Trip to New Zealand and Australia, to look at welfare of former British child migrants.

Cost (seven MPs and two staff for 12 days): pounds 40,415.