EAST Lancashire's only Conservative MP, Nigel Evans, is to ride high on the ocean wave this year.

He is to become a part-time sailor for 28 days over the coming months as part of the Parliamentary Armed Forces Scheme, which gives a number of MPs each year the chance to see for themselves what servicemen and women do.

The Ribble Valley MP will be training with the Royal Navy and spending time on a variety of ships. A spokesman for the Senior Service said: "We'll be delighted to welcome Mr Evans aboard."

Mr Evans said: "I am really looking forward to it. Ten years ago I did a similar course for the RAF. I felt it was time to do a refresher and there's nothing more refreshing than sailing the high seas.

"The Royal Navy has historically been vitally important to Britain. We are an island nation and it has always been a key line of defence. It is still vital as we saw in the Falklands War in terms both of fighting, transporting troops and supplying them. In the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and the Gulf, Royal Navy ships played a vital role. I'm also very interested in the process of change the Navy is going through in the modern world. It plays a very important part in the war against drugs."

He added: "I start with a two-day induction course in Devonport, the massive naval base near Plymouth, and will be helicoptered out to one of its ships at sea. One of the things I would really like to go on is a submarine but the problem is they like to submerge for days at a time rather than a few hours. That might be quite frightening."

The MP last worked with the armed forced 10 years ago when he did an RAF course to investigate the importance of the aerospace industry to East Lancashire and the development of the Eurofighter.

"It was wonderful. I flew in Tornados and all sorts of aircraft," he said. "On one flight from a base in Yorkshire they asked me where I wanted to go and I said over Clitheroe, Longridge and the British Aerospace factories at Samlesbury and Warton - so they took me.

"On these attachments we get to see everyone from the top brass down to ordinary sailors and aircraft repairmen. They are very informative.''

A spokesman for the Royal Navy said: "We very much value MPs coming to work with us on these courses. It's very important that they understand exactly what the armed forces do in the modern world. It greatly informs the level of debate in Parliament."

Mr Evans revealed he had been offered the chance to go on the Royal Marines training course - the toughest available to MPs -four years ago but declined due to his commitments on the Tory front bench.

He added: "Now I am a backbencher again I can do more. However, I can't join the team on a week-long trip to Trinidad to look at what the Royal Navy is doing to tackle drug trafficking to Britain through the West Indies. Sadly, I have constituency commitments already in the diary but that's life!"