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House of Lords: Allowances

My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy for what the noble Lord, Lord Methuen, has said in his amendment, but I wish to address the question of the all-party parliamentary groups, of which I am a great supporter. The country groups—I do not exclude the others but my experience is with the country groups and I declare an interest as an officer of three of them—are great added value for your Lordships' House because they bring us into contact with the Parliaments and Governments of other countries. However, there seems to be a problem which may be an inconsistency. Perhaps the noble Lord could clear it up. Under ““Type of business”” in Annex A, it says that the daily allowance would be available for, "““Committee Visits and official business Members of parliamentary delegations Travel as a Representative of the House Lords outreach programme””." But paragraph 21 says: "““There are three categories of such business as follows””," for parliamentary business away from Westminster. Paragraph 21(b) refers to, "““travel in connection with certain authorised business, such as CPA and IPU business””." Unless that covers the activities of the all-party groups, we have a problem. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether the phrase, "““such as CPA and IPU business””," would cover all-party groups because so many of them are in relation to the IPU? We need to know that. A lot of Peers would like to go on some of these all-party group visits but are somewhat deterred by the fact that when they are away they are deprived of some of the allowances to which they feel that they are entitled.