NFU Political Biography
NORTH SHROPSHIRE
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Rt Hon Owen Paterson MP House of Commons London SW1A 0AA Tel: 020 7219 5185 Fax: 020 7219 3955 E-mail: patersono@parliament.uk Web: www.owenpaterson.org.uk
Biography: A socially conservative right-winger and former Parliamentary Private Secretary to the luckless leader Iain Duncan Smith, Owen Paterson has nevertheless prospered since his leader and political soul-mate was ousted in 2003, joining him at the Cabinet table as Northern Ireland Secretary seven years later.
Michael Howard appointed him as a Shadow Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
He campaigned for radical action on bovine tuberculosis, badgering the Labour Government with more than 600 parliamentary questions, and claiming the record for 300 in one day.
He produced a green paper on regaining national and local control over fisheries from the “disastrous” Common Fisheries Policy.
He is a member of Cornerstone Group, founded to promote radical economic policies and traditional social values.
He backed the rightist Liam Fox in the 2005 Party leadership contest. But David Cameron kept him on as a Shadow Transport Minister, and in 2007 promoted him to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary.
He visited the province frequently and was a prime mover in the ill-fated political alliance with the Ulster Unionists, which failed to win a single seat.
In January 2010, anticipating a Conservative Government, he became involved in the dispute over the devolution of police and justice powers, holding talks with unionists and with the Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
And he duly became Northern Ireland Secretary in May 2010, though with many areas of public life now devolved, the job is not a big as it once was.
In 2012 he was the first Cabinet minister to come out openly against the Government’s proposal for same-sex marriage, a view which might put him at odds with his Parliamentary Private Secretary Conor Burns.
Born in 1956, he was educated at Radley College and read history at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
A former managing director of the family tanning business, the British Leather Company, he gained experience fighting Wrexham in 1992 before succeeding his political mentor John Biffen in a seat which for a time looked less than safe.
As Eurosceptic as Biffen, though further to the Right, he believes in low taxes, free trade and
NFU Political Biography
Although every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, neither the NFU nor the author can accept liability for errors and or omissions. © NFU
The voice of British farming
Page 2 privatisation. His majority fell to just over 2,000 in 1997, but has increased ever since, reaching nearly 16,000 in 2010.
Part Welsh through his mother, he served on the Welsh Affairs Select Committee in his first Parliament, on which he was contemptuous of Welsh devolution.
He also had spells on the Agriculture and European Scrutiny Committees. He is a member of all the main neo-Thatcherite groupings, the Bruges Group, Conservative Way Forward, the '92 Group, No Turning Back, and Conservatives Against a Federal Europe.
He supported John Redwood for leader in 1997 and, unsurprisingly, Iain Duncan Smith in 2001.
As a backbencher he was highly active in the Commons, with a spate of questions and interventions.
He has spoken about rural magistrates, the Falklands, dairy farmers, roads, road hauliers and increased diesel duties, US trade sanctions, pigs, and rural areas. A former asthmatic, he was an early advocate of road pricing to reduce traffic.
He used his expertise and staying power to filibuster a Bill to ban fur farming in 1999. He has called debates in Westminster Hall a waste of money, and wind turbines an environmental disaster.
He called the Millennium Dome grotesque and a national scandal. His normal easy charm seemed to desert him in an incident in the lobby in 1997.
He complained fruitlessly to the Speaker Betty Boothroyd that he was frogmarched away when he tried to raise Shropshire’s Revenue Support Grant with Tony Blair.
The Labour Whip Ann Taylor accused him of boorish and ungallant behaviour.
A tall, good-looking “nouveau-toff”, he is married to the daughter of Viscount Ridley, who is descended from eight generations of MPs, and has three children.
He praised his wife's uncle, the late Nicholas Ridley, in his maiden speech. Fluent and humorous, he speaks without notes, and also speaks French and German.
In 2009 he was embarrassed at having to repay £5,229 expenses he had overclaimed for mortgage interest, repairs, security and insurance on his second home. He said the claims were genuine mistakes.
A member of the Countryside Alliance, he is interested in country sports, as well as “trees, racing and poultry”.He is a liveryman of the Leathersellers' Company and a patron of Shropshire Cricket Club.
Electoral History:
Contested Wrexham 1992 general election. Member for North Shropshire since 1 May 1997.
Parliamentary Career:
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 2010-12
Shadow Secretary for Northern Ireland 2007-10
Shadow Minister for Transport 2005-07
Shadow Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 2003-05
PPS to Iain Duncan Smith as Leader of the opposition 2001-03
Opposition Whip 2000-01
Past Select Committees: Member: Welsh Affairs 1997-2001, European Standing Committee A 1998-2001,
NFU Political Biography
Although every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, neither the NFU nor the author can accept liability for errors and or omissions. © NFU
The voice of British farming
Page 3 Welsh Grand Committee 1998-2000 European Scrutiny 1999-2000, Agriculture 2000-01
Backbench Committees: Conservative Party Committees: Joint Vice-chair, Environment, Transport and Regions 1999-2001, Joint Secretary, European Affairs 1999-2001, Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs 1999-2001 Party Posts: Member: 92 Group 1997-, Conservative Friends of Israel 1997-, Conservative Way Forward 1997-, Conservative 2000 1997-; Vice-President, Conservatives Against a Federal Europe 1998-2001, Member: No Turning Back Group 1998-, Executive, 1922 Committee 2000
International Bodies: President, Cotance (European Tanners' Confederation) 1996-98; Member: Inter-Parliamentary Union 1997-, Commonwealth Parliamentary Association 1997-; Member, Advisory Board, European Foundation 1998-
Political Interests: Trade, industry, agriculture, foreign affairs, economy, social justice, Northern Ireland
Countries of Interest: China, Western and Eastern Europe, India, USA
Meat Trade News Daily Supporting British Pig Farmers
Source: nfuonline.com
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