A Shropshire MP today defended his integrity after he was named in a hit-list of MPs who have failed to attend watchdog committee meetings.

Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, was included in a list of 10 members with the lowest attendance for their assigned select committee meetings, which was covered in The Times. But the Tory MP today said he had quit one of the committees more than a year ago.

He claimed that he had only missed meetings to attend important Commons debates or handle constituency issues.

Mr Kawczynski said he was also chairman of a lot of parliamentary groups which took up a huge amount of his time including his position as the chairman of the all party parliamentary group on Equitable Life and his heading up of the all-party group on dairy farming.

According to The Times he had one of the worst attendance rates for select committee meetings over a year managing just 12.5 per cent of meetings for the Justice Committee and 31.3 per cent of meetings for the International Development Committee.

He also claimed £21,890 in additional cost allowance – £1,193 short of the maximum MPs could claim between November 2007 and November 2008. But Mr Kawczynski claimed that the figure given for the International Development Committee was incorrect.

He said: “I resigned from the justice committee a year ago. I was put on it temporarily, I attended the first three meetings and then I was put on the International one which meets at the same time.” He said he was a “hard working” and dedicated MP who put the needs of his constituents above all else.

He also questioned the ability of select committees to hold the government to account and he criticised the trend of MPs turning up at committee meetings and leaving well before business has been finished just to get their names on the register.