A CHRISTCHURCH MP fears he may have to make his wife redundant under new proposals to clean up Parliament.

Chris Chope could be one of 166 MPs forced to look for new staff when Sir Christopher Kelly reveals his plans to restore Parliament’s reputation in the wake of the expenses scandal.

Sir Christopher is not due to announce his findings until November but it is widely anticipated that they will include a ban on MPs employing relatives.

This ban is likely to come into force with the new Parliament. The option of giving current MPs a period of grace to adapt to the new rules is still under consideration.

Mr Chope’s wife Christo has been his secretary since 1983. They married four years later in 1987.

He said: “I would be very upset if I was told she could no longer be my secretary, I don’t think I would ever be able to find anybody who would be as good.

“The fact that she was my secretary before she was my wife is indicative of the confidence I have in her secretarial qualities.”

He said the work she did was comparable to “running a small business” and added “we work round the clock.”

“If you’ve got your wife as a secretary, it makes it much easier. If you change the rules, the principle is you shouldn’t change them retrospectively.

“I hope that’s not going to happen here, otherwise what would I do?

“She would have to be made redundant, would she?”

Sir Christopher’s Committee on Standards in Public Life is also expected to put a stop to MPs claiming for mortgages on their second homes. The review looks set to recommend that MPs rent, rather than buy, additional properties.