Edward Julian Egerton Leigh
(born 20 July 1950) is a
British
Conservative politician. He has sat in the
House of
Commons
as the Member of
Parliament for Gainsborough
in Lincolnshire
since 1997, and for its predecessor constituency of
Gainsborough and Horncastle between 1983 and 1997. He has
served as Chairman of the
Public Accounts
Committee since 2001. Apart from being dubbed "the
Viscount" upon his arrival in the Commons, a
reference to his landed gentry background, he is next best known
for his opposition to
abortion,
contraception and
genetic research, for his support of capital
punishment and for his defence of
Section
28, which prohibited local authorities from "promot[ing] the
teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of
homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".
Early life
He was
educated at The Oratory
School
, the Lycée Français Charles de
Gaulle
(the French school in London), before going up to
University
College, Durham
where he read History
(BA Hons) and became President of
the Durham Union
Society
. Before entering politics, he qualified as a
barrister of the Inner Temple
, and practised in arbitration and criminal
law as a member of Goldsmiths Chambers. He
is a
Fellow of the
Chartered Institute of
Arbitrators.
Leigh was elected a member of Richmond
Borough Council
and then of the Greater London Council, serving as
Councillor between 1974 and
1981.
Edward
Leigh is a son of the late Sir Neville
Leigh KCVO, a former Clerk
to the Privy
Council, of the West Hall,
High
Legh
family, and a nephew of Princess Nikolai Galitzine. He has six children
(sons Benedict, Nicholas, Theodore, born 1988, 1994 and 1997, and
daughters Natalia, Tamara and Marina, born 1985, 1987 and 1990) by
his wife, Mary Goodman, the grandniece of George, Duke of Mecklenburg, whom
he married on September 25 1984 in London
[50996]. A descendant of King
Henry VII himself through his
Egerton ancestors, his
wife is a descendant of
Sophia,
Electress of Hanover, making his children about 600th in the
line of
succession to the British throne.
Career
An ardent
supporter of Margaret Thatcher,
Leigh and a colleague, Michael Brown MP, visited
Number 10 Downing
Street
on the morning Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom, hoping to persuade her to carry on.
Charles Powell advised them it was a
forlorn task, but nonetheless they were granted access to
the Cabinet which was meeting at the time.
Their
efforts in vain, Leigh and Brown left Number 10 and reputedly
walked down Whitehall
with tears in their eyes. In the ensuing
leadership election, Leigh supported
Michael Heseltine, under whom he had
served at the
Department of Trade and
Industry (DTI), and is attributed with asserting that Heseltine
had "stabbed" Thatcher in the front, not in the back like some
other MPs.
Leigh served as a Minister in
John
Major's Government but was sacked in May 1993 over the position
he took in oppositing to the
Maastricht Treaty. Whilst in office at the
DTI he was a keen advocate of
privatisation of the
Post Office, a debate which is still ongoing. In
the following
Conservative
leadership election, Leigh supported
John Redwood.
In October 2006 Leigh was vocal in stating that after
David Cameron had become Leader of his party,
core supporters were drifting away from voting
Conservative.
[50997] Nonetheless, despite landing on the
losing side in successive party leadership elections, his
appointment as Chairman of the
Public Accounts
Committee has led to the rejuvenation of his parliamentary
career.
In early
2008, he relied on flawed Department for Transport
statistics to attack motorcyclists for tax evasion. He accused 38% of
motorcyclists of evading
vehicle
excise duty. He later apologised for this following the
admission by the Department for Transport that 95.5% of motorcycles
are entirely legal.
[50998]
Leigh is president of the socially conservative
Cornerstone Group, which represents the
views of around 40 Conservative Members of Parliament. Cornerstone
members including Leigh regularly blog about political and social
issues on their website, and is now satisfied that the
Conservative Party is back in contention
to govern.
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