Government dodged questions over the cost of a trip to the UK Labour Party conference in a bid to avoid embarrassment over the whopping $120,000-plus bill for the eight who attended the event, furious Opposition MPs claimed yesterday.

The total bill for the event was more than $24,300 a day, based on a five-night stay in England.

Shadow Finance Minister Grant Gibbons -- who received a written reply to questions about the England visit -- said Government had deliberately used up the hour allotted for questions to avoid supplementary queries.

A string of Progressive Labour Party MPs rose to deliver congratulations and condolences until the 11 a.m. expiry time for questions.

But Opposition Legislative Affairs spokesman John Barritt jumped up minutes before the deadline expired.

He said to Speaker Stanley Lowe : "I'd like to send congratulations to the MPs who have proved themselves adept at filling in the time allotted to congratulations and obituaries in order to avoid answering questions.

"And I would ask you to send condolences for the truth, accountability and transparency we were promised.'' Mr. Barritt said afterwards: "It was obvious that they wanted to avoid answering the questions fully and allow supplementaries because presumably they found it embarrassing and they wanted to shut us down.

"After they stretched the thing out, I got up -- and if they deny this is the case, the written answers to questions didn't come up here until noon. They didn't have any intention of answering them today.'' The written answers revealed that eight MPs, civil servants and UK PR staff spent a massive $53,600 on travel and hotel costs alone for the five-night visit. In addition, a Bermuda booth at the Bournemouth conference centre racked up nearly $23,700, while the cost of a reception for conference delegates cost $14,500-plus.

And -- under "miscellaneous charges'' which included nearly $850 for stationery and nearly $1,040 for miscellaneous hotel charges -- another $30,120 was spent.

Bermuda visitors to the conference included Premier Jennifer Smith, her Chief of Staff David Burch, as well as three other Ministers and three top civil servants.

Dr. Gibbons said: "I was stunned when I found out what they spent in just a few days at the Labour Party conference.

"We felt it was inappropriate to be going as Government to a political party conference -- it almost appears as though, in order to develop a relationship with the Labour Party, our Government feels they have to subsidise their conference so they can get things done.

"We were shocked at the cost of it all and the number of people who went.'' Government insisted afterwards that the trip had generated good results -- including closer links with Britain's ruling party, promises of assistance with matters like the baselands clean-up and air agreements, as well as valuable publicity for Island tourism.

But Dr. Gibbons said: "That argument has been made -- but certainly these issues could be raised on a government-to-government basis.'' And he asked: "Does the taxpayer have to subsidise the Labour Party in Britain in order to get these things raised?'' Dr. Gibbons pointed out that a then-Foreign Office junior Minister visited Bermuda in 1997 to discuss the baselands -- and that former Premier David Saul had raised the compensation issue with US president Bill Clinton in a private meeting afterwards. He added: "There were a lot of discussions after that -- none of them required subsidising a party apparatus in the UK or the US.'' And Dr. Gibbons said: "We simply hope at this point that the very large investment which has been made actually produces some results.'' But he claimed: "So far, there has been no tangible movement on the clean up of the bases properties by the US Government.'' And he backed Mr. Barritt's claims that Government had dodged questions on the costs of the England visit.

Dr. Gibbons said: "This is a Government which promised that `the sunshine of public scrutiny' and `transparency' would be their credo -- so far, we've seen nothing of that.''