David Heathcoat-Amory

Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Template:BLP sources Template:Infobox officeholder David Philip Heathcoat-Amory<ref group="n">(The suffix Amory is pronounced: Template:IPAc-en)</ref> (born 21 March 1949) is a British politician, accountant, and farmer. He was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Wells from the 1983 general election until he lost the seat in the 2010 general election. He became a member of the British Privy Council in 1996. Heathcoat-Amory was previously Chair of the European Research Group.

Education and professional life

David Heathcoat-Amory is the son of British Army Brigadier Roderick Heathcoat-Amory, MC (son of Sir Ian Heathcoat-Amory, 2nd Baronet) and the nephew of Harold Macmillan's Chancellor of the Exchequer Derick Heathcoat-Amory. He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, University of Oxford, where he received an MA in PPE. He was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association.Template:Citation needed

Heathcoat-Amory qualified as an accountant in 1974 and joined Price Waterhouse as a chartered accountant. In 1980, he was appointed as the assistant finance director of the British Technology Group (BTG) where he remained until he was elected to Parliament in 1983.

Political career

Heathcoat-Amory contested the seat of Brent South in the London Borough of Brent 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 Norman Lamont from 1986. 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 to 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 Leader of the Conservative Party in 2001. Heathcoat-Amory was a member of the Treasury Select committee from 2004 until 2005, when he briefly became a spokesman on Work and Pensions under the leadership of Michael Howard, but returned to the backbenches later that year when David Cameron became Conservative leader. He served as the chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the British Museum; the vice chair of the Astronomy and Space Environment APPG; and the secretary of the APPG 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".<ref name=HeathcoatAmory>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Power 2010</ref> Heathcoat-Amory lost his seat in the 2010 general election to the Liberal Democrat candidate 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".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He also admitted that his involvement in the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal played a part in his defeat.<ref name=bbc2010>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

He was criticised in 2008 after remarking that "They're letting anybody in nowadays" regarding the presence of black Labour MP Dawn Butler. Butler claimed that Heathcoat-Amory assumed she was a cleaner. Heathcoat-Amory denied that his remarks were racist.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Having lost by a relatively narrow margin of 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Expenses claims

On 12 May 2009, it was reported in The Daily Telegraph that Heathcoat-Amory had charged the taxpayer for manure costing £380 over 3 years on expenses, under the controversial Additional Costs Allowance.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In February 2010 it was revealed that he had been asked to repay a total of £29,691.93.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Times dubbed the scandal 'The Manure Parliament' when singling out Heathcoat-Amory's claim.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> They have a son, John, and a daughter, Florence (born September 1988). His younger son, Matthew, died of suicide at their second home in Perthshire in 2001. Heathcoat-Amory and his wife Linda said that the family was "deeply shocked" by Matthew's death.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Notes and references

Notes

References

Publications

• A Single European Currency: Why the United Kingdom Must Say No by David Heathcoat-Amory, 1996, Nelson & Pollard Publishing Template:ISBN
• A Market Under Threat: How the European Union Could Destroy the British Art Market by David Heathcoat-Amory, 1998, Centre for Policy Studies Template:ISBN
• The European Constitution by David Heathcoat-Amory, 2003, CPS

External links

• Template:Hansard-contribs
• Official Website
• Guardian Unlimited Politics – Ask Aristotle: David Heathcoat-Amory MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com – David Heathcoat-Amory MP
• The Public Whip – David Heathcoat-Amory MP voting record