MPs spend £1m of taxpayers' money on exotic junkets The cost of the trips almost doubled to more than £800,000 last year, up from £475,000 the year before, despite promises to crack down on the junkets. MPs on the energy and climate change committee were also top beneficiaries, with six MPs going to China at a cost of more than £48,000 and four going to Dallas and Washington DC for £40,000. Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers" Alliance told The Daily Mail: "With video-conferencing facilities able to connect MPs with other politicians or experts around the world at little cost, they should always be asking whether foreign travel is strictly necessary in the first place. "But when these trips end up costing £8,000 or £10,000 per MP, something has clearly gone very wrong and taxpayers" money has not been spent as carefully as it should be." In 2010, John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, called for a crackdown on costs of up to 70 per cent, after it emerged the trips had cost £1.7 million in the final two years of the Labour government.