"Having made a considerable difference in someone's life" is among one of the many dictionary definitions of "to volunteer".

Fisheries and Environment Minister Richard Benyon would certainly agree with that - as one of the country's richest MPs he called on his Westminster staff to undertake extensive tree conservation work with six of his constituency employees.

This meant civil servants, whose wages are taxpayer funded, were unable to do their departmental work because they were working on the project.

Worse still, this task wasn't even for a worthy cause like a local school or a run-down park. It was work on scrub land close to the millionaire MP's country estate.

Since when is charitable work available to aid millionaires?

The Fisheries Minister should have put in "plaice" a charity donation. But it's easier to nail jelly to the wall than it is to get these type of people to prize open their wallets.

There has always been something fishy about this minister - a man who was interviewed and only able to identify three out of 12 of Britain's most common fish - for a Fisheries Minister his "haul" of answers was truly "codswallop".

Stephen Dixon, Redcar.