THE Home Office today hit back at claims that Jack Straw's civil servant wife's directorship with pools giant Littlewoods, which is regulated by his department, created a conflict of interest.

His Tory Shadow Brian Mawhinney has claimed that the Home Secretary and Blackburn MP's wife Alice, who uses her maiden name Perkins at work, should not have accepted the unpaid post two months after the General Election.

He said: "There is a serious potential conflict of interest.

"Mr Straw should declare his wife's directorship in the register of members' interests."

Tory MP Gerald Howarth, a member of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, echoed the criticism describing it as "astonishing" that she took the job which she believed was a "very dangerous precedent."

But a spokesman for Mr Straw said: "There is no question of a conflict of interest. All decisions about Littlewoods are taken by Junior Minister Gerald Howarth.

"There is an accepted procedure for this. Alice was chosen under a scheme to give civil servants an understanding of business set up by the Tories. Jack had nothing to do with it."

Mr Straw is banned from seeing any departmental papers relating to Littlewoods, which said that Miss Perkins had been chosen for her expertise and as "a consumer and mother" not because of her family connections.

Miss Perkins has recently been promoted from deputy director of public spending at the Treasury to director of resources at the Health Department.

Her appointment as a non-executive director of Littlewoods in July was carefully vetted by a civil service committee.

A Commons source said that the idea that wives' jobs should be declared in the register of members' interests was "nonsense."

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