MIDDLEWICH MP Anne Winterton has come under fire from a Labour opponent for not holding a constituency surgery for more than two decades.

Now the Conservative member for Congleton is to be investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Sir Philip Mawer after a formal complaint from Nicholas Milton, of the Labour Party, who will fight Mrs Winterton in the next election.

According to Mr Milton a number of people within the constituency have complained that Mrs Winterton has not held a surgery since 1983.

Mr Milton said: "Despite her track record she hasn't breached the existing code of conduct for MPs at all. What is the point of having a code if it doesn't hold MPs to account?"

But Mrs Winterton insists that she prefers to visit constituents in their own homes and feels this has been a successful method for the past 21 years.

She said: "I have developed a way of serving my constituents over 21 years which works and works effectively, and which has been endorsed at four general elections.

"I do not think it is appropriate that a young man from London who has never been elected as an MP should seek to advise me on how to represent my constituents."

Earlier this year Mrs Winterton came under fire for a joke she made at a private party about Chinese cockle pickers who died in the Morecambe Bay tragedy.

Two years ago she was sacked from her post as the Conservative party's agriculture spokesman after telling a joke about a Pakistani during a Congleton Rugby Club dinner.

gsproston@guardiangrp.co.uk