Sir Edward Garnier QC, the Conservative MP and former Solicitor General for England and Wales, earned an average of £840 an hour as a barrister during the last financial year.

The disclosure comes as Garnier's former colleagues in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) press ahead with cuts to legal aid fees at the criminal Bar, a move which has drawn scepticism from the MP.

According to payments filed on a register of members' interests, Garnier (pictured) worked 127.5 hours in private practice between 1 May 2013 and 30 April 2014, advising firms including DLA Piper and Pinsent Masons. He earned a total of £107,129 for this work over the course of the year.

The charge-out figure represents a 6% hike on Garnier's 2012-13 average rate of just under £800 an hour.

The most recent filings show Garnier was paid £34,750 for 44 hours work for DLA between January and April. A firm spokesperson declined to comment on the instruction, beyond saying DLA retains "a number of advisors for the benefit of our clients."

Garnier's office did not respond to requests for comments on the mandate.

The majority of Garnier's listed clients are law firms, and include Foot Anstey and Spenser Underhill Newmark, the boutique founded by Mayer Brown's former City arbitration head Dominic Spenser Underhill.

A commercial barrister at One Brick Court, Garnier is a leading authority on defamation matters, and in 2012 was instructed by former Conservative Party treasurer Lord McAlpine over allegations linking him to historical child abuse. He is currently the MP for Harborough in Leicester, a seat he has held since 1992.

Earlier this month, Garnier came out in defense of the criminal Bar in their stand-off with the MoJ, after Judge Anthony Leonard ruled a fraud trial had to be abandoned after no barrister would take the case on on a legal aid basis.

"It would be interesting to see whether the ministers and the MoJ would go on, if they were barristers, if they can put up and do this case for a 30% cut in their fees," Garnier told BBC Radio 4. "I don't think they would."

"I am afraid the government is taking a short term, I think, cock-eyed view about how to deal with a perfectly reasonable desire to cut government expenditure but they're not going about it the right way and the maintenance of the rule of law is suffering as a consequence."

Separately, Garnier's fellow party member Jonathan Djanogly continues to be paid £5,000 every month by his former firm King & Wood Mallesons SJ Berwin, for the equivalent of a single day's consultancy work.

In January, Legal Week reported Djanogly, a former corporate finance partner who left legacy SJ Berwin in 2009, has been receiving the payments through his consultancy business CGLV every month since May 2013.