FYLDE MP Michael Jack has resigned as shadow agriculture minister to devote more time to family and business.

The Conservative MP, who was chief secretary to the treasury in John Major's government, said the time had come to re-balance his time between frontline politics, his family and business interests.

With two sons destined for lengthy spells at university - Edmund, on a six-year medical course at Cambridge, and Oliver, currently studying A-levels - he and his wife Alison, a qualified teacher, need to give them all the support they can, he said.

Mr Jack, 51, earns £45,000 a year as an MP and is also retained to give strategic advice to Universal Products at Greenhalgh, packers of pharmaceuticals and toiletries.

"I've always had a close relationship with business," said Mr Jack, who previously worked for Marks and Spencer and the horticultural trade. "I want to maintain that because it enables me to give the additional support to the family that they need.

"Front-bench duty eats up your time. As a government minister you are supported by a private office but in opposition you don't have that back-up, and the agriculture ministry in particular means a lot of travelling all over the country.

"I'd reached a point where my family must come first and I wasn't really able to give the time to my business interests that they deserved.

"I felt that the opposition front-bench team was in much better shape than when I joined it and that now was an appropriate time to hand over to someone else and give a better service to my Fylde contituents."

Mr Jack has built up a strong local following in his 11 years as Fylde MP. Fylde Conservatives' chairman Ivy Tebay said he had done splendid work, both as a government minister and in opposition, especially in liaising between farmers, fishermen and horticulturalists.

"He has been assiduous in listening to and putting foward their points of view, particularly where his Fylde constituents are concerned," she said. "I know his expertise will be greatly missed on the opposition front bench."

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