Edward Timpson | |
---|---|
Solicitor General for England and Wales | |
In office 7 July 2022 –7 September 2022 | |
Prime Minister | Boris Johnson |
Preceded by | Alex Chalk |
Succeeded by | Michael Tomlinson |
Minister of State for Children and Families | |
In office 12 May 2015 –9 June 2017 | |
Prime Minister | David Cameron Theresa May |
Preceded by | Sarah Teather |
Succeeded by | Robert Goodwill |
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families | |
In office 4 September 2012 –12 May 2015 | |
Prime Minister | David Cameron |
Preceded by | Tim Loughton |
Succeeded by | Sam Gyimah |
Member of Parliament for Eddisbury | |
In office 12 December 2019 –30 May 2024 | |
Preceded by | Antoinette Sandbach |
Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
Member of Parliament for Crewe and Nantwich | |
In office 22 May 2008 –3 May 2017 | |
Preceded by | Gwyneth Dunwoody |
Succeeded by | Laura Smith |
Personal details | |
Born | Anthony Edward Timpson 26 December 1973 Knutsford,Cheshire,England |
Political party | Conservative |
Spouse | Julia Timpson |
Relations | James Timpson (brother) |
Children | 4 [1] |
Parent(s) | John Timpson Alex Timpson |
Alma mater | Durham University (BA,Hatfield College) |
Website | edwardtimpson.com |
Anthony Edward Timpson, CBE KC (born 26 December 1973) is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Eddisbury in Cheshire from 2019 to 2024. He is a member of the Conservative Party. [2]
Timpson was previously the MP for neighbouring Crewe and Nantwich,winning a 2008 by-election and retaining the seat until the 2017 general election when he lost to the Labour Party candidate,Laura Smith,by 48 votes. Timpson was Minister of State for Children and Families after the 2015 general election,having been promoted from Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Education.
He was appointed as Solicitor General for England and Wales in the July 2022 British cabinet reshuffle resulting from mass resignations from government which themselves resulted in resignation of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. [3] He was succeeded by Michael Tomlinson in September 2022. [4]
Timpson was born in Knutsford,Cheshire,in 1973. [5] His father,Sir John Timpson,is the chairman and owner of the Timpson chain of shoe repair and key-cutting shops,which has been in the family for five generations and has over 2,000 stores in the UK and Ireland. [6] Timpson grew up with an elder sister and brother,two younger adopted brothers,and over 80 children fostered by his parents. [7] His mother,Alex Timpson,was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 for services to Children and Families. [8] She died on 5 January 2016. [9] [10] [11] His brother James is a life peer and as of July 2024 [update] is a minister in the government of Keir Starmer.
He was educated at Pownall Hall School,Alderley Edge County Primary School,Stockport Grammar Junior School,Terra Nova School and Uppingham School. He then attended Durham University (Hatfield College),where he gained a BA (Hons) in Politics,and the University of Law in London,where he gained a law degree (LLB). [2]
Timpson was called to the Bar of England &Wales in 1998. He was a pupil barrister at One Garden Court Chambers in London,and from 1999 until his first election to Parliament in 2008 practised family law in Chester. [12] [13]
In July 2007,Timpson was selected as the Conservative candidate for the Crewe and Nantwich constituency, [14] an area which had been represented by the Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody since 1974. After Dunwoody died in April 2008,a by-election was called for May 2008. In the run-up to the by-election,Timpson was the target of a "toff" campaign by Labour,which attempted to paint him as "a rich man" who would not "understand the problems that people face day-to-day" in contrast to their candidate,Gwyneth Dunwoody's daughter Tamsin Dunwoody. [10]
The Conservative campaign focused on local issues,such as crime and antisocial behaviour,closure of post offices and problems at Leighton Hospital,where two women in labour were turned away,as well as national issues –referring to Dunwoody as "Gordon Brown's candidate" and capitalising on dissatisfaction with the Labour government,in particular the removal of the 10% tax rate. [15]
On 22 May 2008,Timpson was elected MP,gaining 20,539 votes (49% of the vote),a swing from Labour of 17.6%. [16] [17] This was the Conservatives' first gain in a by-election since 1982. He made his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 16 June 2008. [18] Timpson served on the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Children,Schools and Families Select Committee. He is a Vice-President of Conservative Friends of Poland. [19]
Following his re-election on 7 May 2010,Timpson was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary of Theresa May,the Home Secretary. He was appointed as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families at the Department for Education in September 2012.
Timpson was named "Minister of the Year" in 2014 for pushing through reforms increasing the age of leaving foster care from 18 to 21,an initiative he had originally championed as a backbench committee chair. [20] He credited his childhood experiences of living with a large family of fostered children.
He was re-elected in Crewe and Nantwich at the 2015 general election. On 11 May 2015,four days later,David Cameron announced he would become Minister of State for Children and Families at the Department for Education.
Timpson voted for Remain in the 2016 EU membership referendum. [21]
He lost his seat at the 2017 general election by 48 votes after three recounts. [22]
Timpson went on to write a review into education,looking at school exclusions,off-rolling and Special Educational Needs (SEN) students. [23] [24] [25] [26]
In 2018,Timpson was appointed as the chair of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS),for the term from April 2018 to April 2021,succeeding Baroness Tyler of Enfield. [13]
Having lost his former seat of Crewe and Nantwich in 2017,Timpson was selected as the Conservative Party's candidate for the neighbouring seat Eddisbury in the 2019 general election. He defeated Antoinette Sandbach (formerly a Conservative MP who was suspended from the party and then defected to the Liberal Democrats). [27] His former seat also went back to the Conservatives.
Following his appointment as Solicitor General for England and Wales in July 2022 he received the customary appointment as Queen's Counsel on 20 July 2022. [28] As a result,he was the last QC to be appointed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. [29]
Timpson announced in February 2022 that he would be stepping down at the 2024 general election. [30]
In June 2002,Timpson married Julia Helen Still in south Cheshire. The couple have a son and three daughters. [2]
He has completed 15 marathons,including the New York City Marathon in 2007 and the London Marathon in 2008,raising over £15,000. [31] His recreations are listed in Who's Who as "football (watching and playing),cricket,marathon running,travel,playing with my children". [2]
Timpson was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2018 New Year Honours for public and parliamentary service. [32]
Gwyneth Patricia Dunwoody was a British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Exeter from 1966 to 1970, and then for Crewe from February 1974 to her death in 2008. She was a moderate socialist and had a reputation as a fiercely independent parliamentarian, described as "intelligent, obstinate, opinionated and hard-working".
Moyra Tamsin Dunwoody, sometimes known as Tamsin Dunwoody-Kneafsey, is a British Labour politician who served as the Member of the National Assembly for Wales for Preseli Pembrokeshire from 2003 to 2007. She served in the Welsh Government from 2005 to 2007 as the Deputy Minister for Environment, Planning and Countryside and Deputy Minister for Economic Development and Transport.
Crewe and Nantwich is a constituency in Cheshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. It was created in 1983; since 2024 its Member of Parliament (MP) has been Connor Naismith of the Labour Party.
Eddisbury was a constituency in Cheshire last represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Edward Timpson, a Conservative who left office at the dissolution of parliament in advance of the 2024 United Kingdom general election, at which this former constituency was replaced.
Haslington is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It lies about 2 miles (3.2 km) north-east of the much larger railway town of Crewe and approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Sandbach. The village was originally bisected by the A534 road that links Crewe with Sandbach, however, this road has now been re-routed to bypass the village to the north-west. The village is also a close neighbour to a number of small towns and villages, and is approximately 6 miles (9.7 km) from the Elizabethan market town of Nantwich.
Crewe was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1885 to 1983. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
Nantwich was a parliamentary constituency in Cheshire which returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected using the first-past-the-post voting system.
Chorley is a hamlet and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The hamlet lies 5 miles to the west of Nantwich and 6 miles to the north east of Malpas. The total population is a little over a hundred people. Nearby villages include Faddiley, Norbury, Ravensmoor and Wrenbury.
Dodcott cum Wilkesley is a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The hamlet of Wilkesley lies 2+1⁄2 miles to the west of Audlem and 7 miles to the south west of Nantwich. The parish also includes the village of Burleydam, the largest settlement, as well as the small settlements of Butterley Heyes, Cheshire Fields, Combermere, Lightwood Green and Royal's Green. It also formerly contained the settlements of Pinsley Green and Smeaton Wood, now located in Wrenbury cum Frith civil parish. Nearby villages include Adderley and Calverhall in Shropshire and Audlem, Newhall and Wrenbury within Cheshire.
Egerton is a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. A largely rural area, the parish includes the small settlement of Egerton Green, which lies 3¾ miles to the north east of Malpas and 8 miles to the west of Nantwich, as well as Fairy Glen. The population is less than 100. Nearby villages include Bickerton, Bulkeley and No Man's Heath.
Leighton is a scattered settlement and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, which lies immediately north west of Crewe. The parish also includes the village of Barrows Green, which lies on the northern outskirts of Crewe, 1½ miles from the centre. Nearby villages include Bradfield Green and Worleston. The total population of the civil parish was 4,883 at the 2011 Census.
Hurleston was a civil parish until April 2023 and now forms part of the civil parish of Stoke and Hurleston, within the unitary authority area of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, which lies to the north west of Nantwich. The area is predominantly rural with scattered farms and buildings and no settlements. Nearby villages include Barbridge, Burland, Radmore Green, Rease Heath and Stoke Bank.
The 2008 Crewe and Nantwich by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 22 May 2008, for the House of Commons constituency of Crewe and Nantwich, in Cheshire, England. The election was won by the Conservative party candidate Edward Timpson, who defeated the Labour party candidate Tamsin Dunwoody, on a swing from Labour to Conservative of 17.6%, a swing that in a general election would have seen nine Labour cabinet ministers lose their seats.
The 2008 Henley by-election to elect a member of the House of Commons for the constituency of Henley in Oxfordshire was held on 26 June 2008. It followed the election of the previous incumbent Boris Johnson as Mayor of London in May 2008. In order to resign from being an MP, Johnson accepted the post of Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead on 4 June 2008.
Antoinette Geraldine Mackeson-Sandbach, known as Antoinette Sandbach, is a barrister, farm manager and politician who was elected as a North Wales region Member of the Welsh Assembly at the May 2011 election, and subsequently elected Member of Parliament for Eddisbury in Cheshire at the 2015 general election.
Sir William John Anthony Timpson CBE is a British businessman who is chairman and owner of retailer Timpson.
Laura Smith is a British politician who served as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Crewe and Nantwich from 2017 to 2019. In 2017, she defeated the incumbent Conservative Edward Timpson by 48 votes, before losing her seat at the 2019 general election.
Kieran John Mullan is a British Conservative Party politician who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bexhill and Battle. He was previously the MP for Crewe and Nantwich between 2019 and 2024. He has been Shadow Minister for Transport since July 2024.
A by-election for the United Kingdom parliamentary constituency of the City of Chester was held on 1 December 2022. It followed the resignation of incumbent member of Parliament Chris Matheson as on 21 October 2022 after accusations of sexual misconduct and a recommendation from the Independent Expert Panel that he be suspended from the House of Commons for four weeks.