‘Only three people have raised this’

MP Simon Reevell finds out the views of local people on the streets of Mirfield.

In 2012, Simon Reevell earned £87,439.42 from his legal work, which took up 282 hours of his time, on top of 119 court appearences and three meetings.

The average Briton works 1,647 hours each year. This week Mr Reevell has defended the amount of that time he spends working as a lawyer.

He said: “Perhaps three people have raised this issue with me since the election. Two of them said that if it was the same amount of time helping in a dog’s home it wouldn’t matter.”

He added that his court appearances were mainly short, morning hearings, after which he can do his MP work until late at night and at weekends.

“The amount of time they last determines whether I do them or not, because if they clashed with my work as an MP I would not do them,” he said.

Mr Reevell admitted doing some full-day appearances, but only when Parliament was in recess and he did not have daytime constituency work.