Theresa Villiers MP is reassuring the people of Chipping Barnet that despite being promoted to Northern Ireland Secretary she will continue to spend three days a week in her constituency.

As part of David Cameron’s reshuffle yesterday Ms Villiers, MP for Chipping Barnet, was promoted from her position as Minister of State for Transport to replace Owen Paterson as Northern Ireland Secretary.

The Conservative MP said: “I am delighted that the Prime Minister has appointed me as Northern Ireland Secretary.

“This is a really important job in government and I look forward to building on the work of my predecessor, Owen Paterson.”

She added: “I will be in Northern Ireland for a period every week but I will be able to retain the routine of being in my constituency on Friday, Saturday and Sunday each week.

“It will vary from week to week but in the main it will just mean that rather than being in Westminster I will be in Belfast.”

Ms Villiers told the Times Series that the biggest impact her new job will have upon her life is that she will now be required to take police protection officers with her wherever she goes.

She said: “A big change will be that I will now have protection officers with me.

“I am not sure how that will work but in theory I am supposed to take them everywhere with me.

“Even if I just go out for dinner with friends they are meant to come.

“I am told they are very discreet though.”

The MP said that while she is very excited about taking on new challenge it will be strange for her to relinquish control of projects she has worked on for a long time, such as Crossrail.

She said: “It’s a really exciting challenge for me and I am looking forward to it.

“It is a bit heart wrenching though as I have done a huge amount of work on transport projects such as rail projects.

“I have been living and breathing Crossrail for years so it will be strange to see someone else taking over that.

“I will suddenly be grappling with a completely new set of issues.”