Earlier this week Mr Yeo said the opposition would "fully support" the steps taken by the government to contain and eradicate the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

Last year Conservative former ministers apologised for their part in the BSE crisis following the publication of the results of a report which describes the crisis as a "national tragedy". Tim Yeo said he was "truly sorry" for what had happened.

He had been an ambitious junior environment minister but was forced to resign in 1994 over an affair with a Tory councillor.

But Conservative leader William Hague brought him back first as opposition spokesman on local government and the environment, then as agriculture minister.

He was also one of eight members of the Tory frontbench who admitted using cannabis in the past after a row broke out over the Conservatives' policy on the drug.

Tim Yeo was educated at Charterhouse, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and then went into finance and industry.

He became director of the Spastics Society and is married to a charity organiser who runs Sargent Cancer Care for Children.

Tim Yeo has been MP for the safe seat Suffolk South since 1983. He was parliamentary private secretary to Douglas Hurd.