A NORTH-East Labour MP has rejected claims that he is one of the quietest members in the House of Commons.

A national Sunday paper published what it claimed was the "first official league table of MPs' performance" on the floor of the main chamber.

It said the survey, by Commons officials, revealed that John Cummings, MP for Easington, County Durham, was one of five MPs who did not say a word last year.

The survey monitored MPs' contributions in the Commons chamber from June 2001, just after the last General Election, to last November.

But Mr Cummings, whose former mining constituency has some of the country's worst deprivation, rejected the claims.

The 59-year-old former colliery electrician said: "There's more to working the Commons than sitting for hours on end in the chamber.

"I spend a great deal of time speaking in the Select Committee for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and I'm on the Speaker's Panel that chairs committees.

"That is apart from the constituency work that I do.

"I put in a lot of hard work on an adjournment debate last year in which I spoke about the pressing health issues in the constituency.

"It resulted in the Primary Care Trust getting a very handsome settlement, an increase of 40 per cent. There is an awful lot of work that goes on outside the main chamber. I am an assiduous attender and that is reflected in my voting record."

The Labour leader of Easington District Council, Councillor Alan Napier, said: "John has been our MP for 15 or 16 years and has done a tremendous amount of work.

"It is about what you deliver, not about getting seen on TV, but if you are not seen, people get the idea that you are not doing anything.

"John is really involved with the select committee and he was the front-runner in getting an extra £36m of funding for the Easington Primary Care Trust. He does a lot for the area."