Eastleigh MP will be Oxford visiting fellow

3.47.31pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 21st Aug 2008

Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne has been honoured with the award of a visiting fellowship at Nuffield College in the University of Oxford.

The unpaid position involves giving the occasional lecture and participating twice a year in seminars and dinners at the post-graduate college, which specialises in social sciences like Mr Huhne's former discipline of economics.

"I am very honoured to have been asked to be one of only a handful of MPs who have the opportunity to be a visiting Fellow at Nuffield, which is a wonderful way of keeping in touch with the cutting edge of thinking on many issues that affect public policy such as knife crime and the fall in the housing market" said Mr Huhne.

Mr Huhne accepted the offer from Nuffield Warden Stephen Nickell, an award-winning economist who was a long-standing member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee.