The UK Foreign Office Minister responsible for the Overseas Territories has quit his post — and said he cannot afford to stay in the British Government.

Mark Simmonds, who was appointed to the job less than a year ago, stepped down and said UK parliamentary allowances were not enough to cover the rental cost of a family home near Westminster and added he would also stand down as an MP at the next general election.

Now Conservative backbencher James Durridge has been appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron to fill the vacant job.

Mr Durridge, a former merchant banker with London-based Barclay’s Bank, worked in several African countries before he was elected to the UK parliament in 2005 for the Rochford and Southend East seat in Essex, near London.

The decision drew fire from some sections of the UK media as Mr Simmonds — who earned $150,350 as a junior Minister — was also allowed more than $47,000 to cover renting a home in the British capital.

In addition he paid an allowance of $42,000 for an office manager to his wife, who fulfilled that position.

The expenses rules for MPs were changed after a 2009 scandal which saw several members of the House of Commons and House of Lords jailed for fraud.

Others were forced to pay back large sums which were found to have been wrongly claimed and many UK MPs were forced to quit in the wake of the row.

Many of the claims involved the now-abolished perk of purchasing a second home in the capital by MPs who represented non-metropolitan seats.

Mr Simmonds, the MP for Boston and Skegness in the English county of Lincolnshire, resigned his post only a week after Baronsess Warzi resigned from her Foreign Office job in protest over the UK’s stance on Israel’s attacks on Gaza.