MPs notch up the air miles, from Portugal to Venezuela

MPs who suffer from air- sickness need not apply. The 11 members of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee clocked up 43 overseas trips between them last year, according to a report published yesterday.

The committee's members went to 11 different countries on six different group visits, most of them within Europe. However, all but two went to South America to view Britain's links with Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Chile.

During the year groups of MPs also took trips to Denmark and Sweden, Germany, Spain, Portugal and France. The word "junket" should not spring to mind, though. The committee waded through almost 100 meetings during the visits, plus more than 30 contacts with foreign dignitaries in this country.

David Howell, chairman of the committee, said the number of visits had been slightly more than usual last year, with the average standing at about three. However, the MPs had split into two groups for the South American visits, with three going to Venezuela and Mexico and a further six going separately to Argentina, Brazil and Chile. A report produced as a result will be published this week. The trips were necessary, he said, "to remind Parliament, the press, Whitehall and the government that life doesn't begin and end in Europe. They keep you at it very closely indeed. They are working visits and there isn't much relaxation.

"Whenever it is called 'junketing,' which it inevitably is, I think those who talk of it should come and spend a couple of days in Sarajevo, Kenya or Rwanda."

Two years ago the committee became the first group of MPs willingly to avoid the chance of a free trip abroad when they interviewed Chris Patten, Governor of Hong Kong, via a satellite link.