A WORCESTERSHIRE MP is raking in £37,000 a year from two jobs outside of parliament, it has emerged.

Peter Luff has been working in two lucrative roles, both of which pay him upwards of £1,000 for just a single day’s work.

The Conservative, who represents Mid-Worcestershire, insists it does not make it difficult to be an MP - and says all parliamentarians should be forced to work in “the real world”.

The first position is chairman of the Democracy Forum, a body which aims to spread peace and understanding around the world.

The London-based, not-for-profit organisation is handing him £12,000 per year for around one day’s work every month.

Alongside that, Mr Luff has also secured a non-executive directorship of Marlin Group Holdings, a Dorset-based automation suppliers firm. The company is paying him £25,000 a year – not far off the national average yearly salary – for no more than one-and-a-half days work per month.

The findings appear in the latest version of the MPs Register of Financial Interests.

It follows calls to ban MPs having second jobs altogether, although Mr Luff has refuted any suggestion it tires him out and lessens his constituency work.

Both jobs were secured earlier this year, and came after he stepped down as a defence minister in David Cameron’s Government.

He said: “The Democracy Forum is a group of people who are passionate about spreading peace and understanding around the world.

“We had a forum only this week about women’s rights in Afghanistan, and we’ve done one on hunger and terrorism - it’s fascinating.

“These roles take up a fraction of the time being a minister did, and my view is clear - MPs can do an awful lot in the real world.

“I genuinely believe all MPs should be non-executive directors in a business, because observing from the inside is incredibly useful.

“MPs need exposure to the real world and if it was ever banished, the commons would be a diminished place.”

Labour leader Ed Miliband has pledged to ban his MPs from having what he calls “lucrative” second jobs by 2015 - roles which pay more than 15 per cent of their total income.

Mr Cameron has refused to back the idea, instead saying parliamentarians should remain transparent about their outside earnings.

Worcester MP Robin Walker has no current outside employment, nor does West Worcestershire’s Harriett Baldwin.

But both have had similar part-time roles in the past, with Mr Walker advising financial PR firm Finsbury and Mrs Baldwin working for a social investment body.