Health Minister aged 39 walks out on wife for councillor, 50

Mr Lewis, 39, a Minister in the Department of Health who has been tipped for a place in the Cabinet when Tony Blair stands down, has been enjoying a relationship with Labour activist Margaret Gibb ) 11 years his senior ) who represents residents in Bury, Lancashire.

The Minister, who prior to joining the Commons in 1997 was chief executive of the Manchester Jewish Foundation, has outraged the religious community in Manchester by turning his back on life with wife Juliette and their two sons aged nine and 11.

This week Margaret Gibb's husband Andrew Robinson - Councillor Gibb uses her maiden name - admitted that his wife's relationship with the MP had become 'common knowledge' in the area.

Mr Robinson said: 'The one thing I don't want to do is embarrass my wife. But what you say is right, my wife has left me and I understand Mr Lewis has left his wife.'

He added: 'We do live very close together. But I would not say we have met as couples socially. My wife is active in local politics and may have started meeting him because he is her MP.

'I do not know how Mrs Lewis is. I have not seen her for some time.

I do not know what my wife and Mr Lewis's plans are for the future.'

The Lewis and Robinson families live in Prestwich village, where there is a close-knit Jewish community, although Mr Robinson and his wife, both 50, are not Jewish.

Mrs Lewis has stayed in the couple's substantial Victorian semi with their children, a few hundred yards from where her husband's new love has taken a modern apartment after walking out on her husband and their student son Thomas.

Mr Lewis and Ms Gibb are understood not to be openly living under the same roof and, because of the separation, the Minister has been forced to stay with his parents in nearby Sedgeley.

Speaking at their home in Prestwich, North Manchester, Mrs Lewis, 46, said: 'My husband and I are not together any more. I have very young children and I don't want to say anything more.'

Ms Gibb works in the clinical psychology department at Birch Hill Hospital, Rochdale, and is on Bury Metropolitan Borough Council. Last night she said: 'I really have got nothing to say to you.'

A member of the local Jewish community said: 'This has been the subject of much gossip among the community who would have preferred it to be kept quiet.

'An MP is a respected member of society. This has devastated both families.'

Mr Lewis was a 23-year-old bachelor social worker when he married 30-year-old spinster Juliette in the local synagogue.

He has been tipped to succeed in politics. He is one of few MPs said to be favoured by both Blair and Brown and has had a number of roles in the Government, including Economic Secretary to the Treasury.

Last night he said: 'My wife and I separated five months ago.'

Asked if it had anything to do with his friendship with Mrs Gibb, he said: 'I am not prepared to discuss any other aspects of my private life. My wife and I are in the process of arranging a divorce. You can appreciate that is difficult enough.'