By Justin Parkinson BBC News Online education staff, in Bournemouth

The encounter between Bevan (left) and Twigg was good-natured

And it all seemed to be going so well by the seaside.

Schools minister Stephen Twigg was on his way to catch the train after bathing in the warm applause of a teachers' conference in Bournemouth.

But as he was about to make for the door, he came face to face with an unlikely political assassin - the husband of a disgruntled classroom assistant.

Why, asked Robin Bevan in front of an assembled press corps, was his wife paid less than a Tesco checkout assistant?

The anti-Portillo

Marion Bevan takes home just �5.70 an hour for her work with children at Chalkwell Hall Infant School in Southend, Essex.

Mr Bevan implored the minister, who famously took the Enfield Southgate seat in north London from Michael Portillo in the 1997 general election: "Do something about it - no, seriously, do something about it."

A slightly embarrassed-looking Mr Twigg left the Bournemouth International Centre, promising to take Mr Bevan's comments on board.

Uncomfortable as this was, it was not the first time Marion Bevan had troubled the career of Mr Twigg, one of New Labour's leading lights.

She had been a fellow pupil at Southgate Comprehensive School during the general election of 1983.

Supermarket chat

Standing as a Conservative candidate in the sixth-form's mock vote, she beat Mr Twigg (Labour) into fourth place, herself coming second to an independent candidate.

After the minister had left the Association of Teachers and Lecturers' annual conference, Mr Bevan explained how his wife had discovered she earned less than a Tesco check-out assistant.

He said: "It was the usual casual conversation as we were buying the weekly groceries.

"The clock on the wall was two hours wrong, we happened to notice.

"The assistant said she was glad she wasn't facing that way because she would have had another two hours but, then again, things weren't that bad, she was being paid �6 an hour.

"As we were walking away, my wife turned around to me and said 'Do you realise I'm paid less than �6 an hour?'."

Mr Bevan, a deputy head teacher, said his wife was "pretty angry" on behalf of her fellow assistants who were the sole breadwinners in their families.

Mr Bevan said his wife, who has a degree in social science and a post-graduate certificate in child development, was only paid for the time she worked during terms.

He called for an end to locally agreed, term-time-only contracts for classroom assistants and for wages to increase.