Britain’s MEPs are spending more than £100,000 a year on fact-finding missions to long-haul tourist destinations from the Seychelles to Jamaica.

On one trip, David Martin, the Scottish MEP, and Giles Chichester, former leader of the Conservative MEPs, were invited to watch La Traviata at Sydney Opera House before a dinner in Sydney harbour aboard a luxury catamaran.

As voters prepare for this week’s European elections, the newly compiled figures highlight the cost of maintaining MEPs and their globetrotting lifestyle. In the past year, Britain’s MEPs flew 363,990 miles.

“Never mind the gravy train, the European parliament is more like the gravy plane,” said Lorraine Mullally, deputy director of Open Europe, the think tank that compiled the figures .

“MEPs are clocking up thousands of miles on dubious ‘fact-finding’ trips to luxurious locations like Miami while the rest of us scale down our travel plans in the recession.”

In the study of 78 British MEPs’ overseas trips since the last European election five years ago, Glenys Kinnock, who represents Wales, is the most far-travelled, clocking up 127,465 miles, equivalent to flying around the world more than five times.

She has been on official delegations visiting the Seychelles, Barbados and Namibia. Martin, the Labour MEP for Scotland, who clocked up 114,180 air miles, is the third-most travelled. In the past four years he has been on six long haul trips, at an estimated cost of £38,000. He made two visits to Australia, where MEPs stayed in a five-star resort and were invited to watch the sunrise and have dinner at Uluru, or Ayers Rock.

Martin twice visited New Zealand where the itinerary included a tour of scenery featured in the Lord of the Rings films and also travelled to Peru and Korea. A report of his trip to Australia in March 2007 said it offered a chance to “discuss the situation of the indigenous community of Australia.”

Chichester has flown twice to Australia and once to New Zealand, clocking up more than 87,590 air miles. He resigned as leader of the Tory MEPs last June after The Sunday Times revealed that he had broken European parliament rules by channelling £445,000 of allowances through a family company, Francis Chichester, in St James’s Place, London. The European parliament subsequently ruled there had been no conflict of interest or personal gain in his arrangements.

Open Europe has calculated the annual cost of the MEPs’ trips using average hotel and business class ticket costs.

An internal audit disclosed to MEPs last year found significant abuses in the expenses system. Brussels has now introduced stricter controls. Labour said that trips by MEPs created trade opportunities with other parts of the world in order to create jobs in the UK.

A Labour spokesman added: “David Martin is noted for being a very hard working MEP who has made more speeches in parliamentary debates than any other Scottish MEP by a factor of three.”

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