WORCESTER'S MP says scandal-hit Keith Vaz did the right thing by quitting a powerful Commons role after the sex workers furore.

Robin Walker has told the Worcester News MPs cannot expect to have an absolute right to privacy given their high-profile public positions.

After days of lurid tabloid headlines about Mr Vaz meeting male escorts the Leicestershire MP has quit his position as chairman of the influential home affairs select committee, which is probing vice and drugs laws.

The sensational saga has reopened the debate about how much privacy MPs should be entitled to expect.

Mr Vaz, who represents Leicester East, is a married father-of-two and stepped down from his Commons position on Tuesday after saying "those who hold others to account must themselves be accountable".

But he remains an MP for Labour, despite its leader Jeremy Corbyn refusing to rule out removing him from its decision-making National Executive Committee in the coming days.

Mr Walker, who is now in the Government as a junior Brexit minister, said: "As he has concluded himself, there was a conflict between his role on the home affairs select committee and these alleged activities, so I think he's done the right thing.

"There are lawyers involved so there's not much more I can say, but at the end of the day politicians will always be held to account at a higher level of public interest justification than other people.

"But it's right that the select committee should get on with its work without any of this distraction.

"I would also say that whatever else, Keith Vaz has always been one of those politicians prepared to work cross-party, he's not tribal and is always very polite and respectful to MPs on all sides."

Last weekend the Sunday Mirror published pictures showing Mr Vaz with male sex workers in a flat in north London that he owns.

He allegedly told them to bring poppers and also said he could pay for cocaine, but told the two escorts he would not take them himself.

Despite his resignation from the high-profile home affairs role a number of parliamentarians, including ones from Labour, are privately calling for Mr Vaz to resign as an MP.

MPs on the select committee told him they were prepared to resign or force a vote of no confidence if he refused to step down.

He has apologised to his wife and children for the "hurt and distress" he caused them.