Political career
Heathcoat-Amory contested the London Borough of Brent seat at Brent South at the 1979 general election but was defeated by the sitting Labour MP Laurence Pavitt by 11,616 votes. He was elected to the House of Commons at the 1983 general election for the Somerset seat of Wells,whose sitting MP Robert Boscawen had decided to move to Somerton and Frome following boundary changes. He held the seat with a majority of 6,575.
In Parliament,he was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury John Moore in 1985,and was also the PPS to his successor from 1986 Norman Lamont. Following the 1987 general election he became the PPS to the Home Secretary Douglas Hurd until he was promoted to the government of Margaret Thatcher as an Assistant Government Whip in 1988. He was promoted to become a Lord Commissioner to the Treasury and Government Whip in 1989. Later in the year he became the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for the Environment,until moved by the new prime minister John Major in the same position at the Department of Energy in 1990. He was appointed as the Treasurer of the Household (Deputy Chief Whip) following the 1992 general election and was the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1993. He was appointed as the Paymaster General in 1994 where he served until resigning from the government in 1996 over the single European currency. He became a member of the Privy Council in 1996.
In 1997 Heathcoat-Amory joined the shadow cabinet of William Hague as the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury,and was the Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry from 2000. He left the frontbench on the election of Iain Duncan Smith as the leader of the Conservative Party in 2001. He was a member of the Treasury Select committee from 2004 until he was briefly,in 2005,a spokesman on work and pensions under the leadership of Michael Howard,but returned to the backbenches later in the year when David Cameron became Conservative leader. He served as the chairman of the all party group on the British Museum;the vice chair of the group on astronomy and space environment;and the secretary of the group on boxing.
From late 2001 until July 2003,Heathcoat-Amory was one of the two British parliamentary delegates to the Convention on the Future of Europe,which drafted the European Constitution. He is well known for his strong euroscepticism and was,through the work of the Convention,a fierce opponent of the official drafts being prepared by the presidium of the Convention,criticising them as being too federalist.
Heathcoat-Amory was selected by the Power 2010 democracy and constitutional reform campaign as one of six MPs accused of "failing our democracy" and who "stand in the way of a reforming Parliament". [1] [2] Heathcoat-Amory lost his seat in the 2010 general election to the Liberal Democrat's Tessa Munt who achieved a 6.1% swing.
At the election,UKIP's Jake Baynes was requested by his party to stand down owing to UKIP's policy of not standing a candidate in a constituency where there is already a committed eurosceptic,but he refused to do so. In interviews,Baynes said he was "offering the public a service no other candidate is". [3] Heathcoat-Amory partly blamed the presence of a UKIP candidate on the ballot paper for his defeat during his speech after the result of the ballot was announced. [4] He also admitted that his involvement in the expenses scandal played a part in his defeat. [5] [6] [7]
He was criticised in 2008 after remarking,regarding the presence of a Black MP,Dawn Butler,"They're letting anybody in nowadays". Heathcoat-Amory denied the accusation that his remarks were racist. [8] [9]
Having lost by a relatively narrow 800 votes in the General Election in June 2010,Heathcoat-Amory announced to the local party members and media that he would not be contesting the next general election. [10]
Personal life
He enjoys angling,growing trees,gardening and astronomy. He married Linda Adams on 4 February 1978 in north Hampshire. The couple lives on an estate in west London with a significant art collection. [15] They have a son,John,and a daughter,Florence (born September 1988). His younger son,Matthew,took his own life at their second home in Perthshire in 2001. Heathcoat-Amory and his wife Linda said the family was "deeply shocked". [16]
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