John Gummer

The Right Honourable
The Lord Deben
PC
Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions
In office
2 May 1997 – 11 June 1997
Leader John Major
Preceded by John Prescott (Environment)
Succeeded by Norman Fowler
Secretary of State for the Environment
In office
27 May 1993 – 2 May 1997
Prime Minister John Major
Preceded by Michael Howard
Succeeded by John Prescott (Environment, Transport and the Regions)
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
In office
24 July 1989 – 27 May 1993
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
John Major
Preceded by John MacGregor
Succeeded by Gillian Shephard
Chairman of the Conservative Party
In office
11 June 1983 – 2 September 1985
Leader Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by Cecil Parkinson
Succeeded by Norman Tebbit
Member of Parliament
for Suffolk Coastal
Eye (1979–1983)
In office
4 May 1979 – 12 April 2010
Preceded by Harwood Harrison
Succeeded by Therese Coffey
Member of Parliament
for Lewisham West
In office
18 June 1970 – 28 February 1974
Preceded by James Dickens
Succeeded by Christopher Price
Personal details
Born (1939-11-26) 26 November 1939
Stockport, Cheshire, England
Political party Conservative
Spouse(s) Penelope Gardner
Alma mater Selwyn College, Cambridge
Religion Roman Catholicism

John Selwyn Gummer, Baron Deben, PC (born 26 November 1939 in Stockport, Cheshire) is a British Conservative Party politician, formerly Member of Parliament (MP) for Suffolk Coastal and now a member of the House of Lords.[1]

Lord Deben is Chairman of the UK's independent Committee on Climate Change. He also chairs the sustainability consultancy Sancroft International, recycler Valpak,[2] GLOBE International – the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment, the Association of Professional Financial Advisers and Veolia Water UK.[3] He is a non-executive director of Veolia Voda, The Catholic Herald and the Castle Trust – a mortgage and investment firm.[4][5] He is also a Trustee of the ocean conservation charity, Blue Marine Foundation.[6]

John Gummer stood down from the House of Commons at the 2010 general election and was appointed to the Upper House as Lord Deben.[7]

Early life

The eldest son of a Church of England priest, Canon Selwyn Gummer,[8] his younger brother is Peter Gummer, Baron Chadlington, a PR professional.

Gummer attended King's School, Rochester, before going up to Selwyn College, Cambridge where he read History. Whilst there, as chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association and later President of the Cambridge Union Society, he was a member of what became known as the Cambridge Mafia – a group of future Conservative Cabinet ministers, including Leon Brittan, Michael Howard, Kenneth Clarke, Norman Lamont, and Norman Fowler.

Public life

Elections

First elected to Parliament at the 1970 general election, where he defeated sitting MP James Dickens in Lewisham West, Gummer had previously contested Greenwich in 1964 and 1966. He was unseated in February 1974 by Labour's Christopher Price who achieved a 3.4% swing compared with a 1.3% swing to Labour nationally, deciding not to stand for the seat in the second election that year.

In 1979, he returned to the House of Commons, securing Eye in Suffolk, following the retirement of veteran Tory MP Harwood Harrison. He held the constituency and its successor Suffolk Coastal until his retirement from the Commons in 2010.

In Government

Gummer was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture in Edward Heath's government, before being appointed Conservative Party Vice-Chairman – a position he held until the government's fall in 1974. Following his return to the House in the 1979 election, he held various government posts and was Conservative Party Chairman from 1983 to 1985 – an office he held at the time of the Brighton hotel bombing during the 1984 Conservative Party conference. He joined the Cabinet in 1989 as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, moving to become Secretary of State for the Environment under John Major in 1993.[9] As Environment Secretary he introduced the Environment Act 1995 and the Landfill Tax, which was the first such environmental tax in the UK. The BBC Wildlife magazine described him as the "Environment Secretary against which all others are judged",[10] placing him as one of its top ten environmental heroes. In 1997, he was also awarded the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Medal.[11] and Friends of the Earth described his as "the best Environment Secretary we've ever had".[12]

He had responsibility for food safety during the mad cow disease epidemic in 1989–90 which eventually claimed 176 British lives. At the height of the crisis in May 1990, he attempted to refute the growing evidence for BSE/Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease by feeding his 4-year-old daughter a burger before press cameras.[13] [14][15]

Gummer opposed reduction of beds at the Aldeburgh Cottage Hospital.[16]

In Opposition

Following the 1997 Labour election victory he became a backbencher and chairman of the All-Party Group on Architecture and Planning. During this time he actively pursued environmental causes, introducing an Early Day Motion on Climate Change to Parliament along with Michael Meacher and Norman Baker.[17] He was also instrumental in the passing of the Climate Change Act of 2008.

Because of his environmental credentials, in 2005 David Cameron asked Deben to chair the Quality of Life Policy Group with Zac Goldsmith as his deputy.[18]

In 2009, Lord Deben attracted attention in the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, after claiming £36,000 for gardening over 4 years, as an parliamentary expense. Although the claims were encouraged and initially approved by the Parliamentary Fees Office, rules state claims should only be made on expenses essential to parliamentary duties. He repaid £11,538 for gardening and household bills and donated £11,500 to charity, paying above the minimum required in order to demonstrate "corporate social responsibility" for the expenses system.[19] Consequently, the Legg Report[20] showed that 343 MPs had been asked to repay some money with Gummer paying the 7th highest figure.[21]

House of Lords

It was announced that Gummer would be awarded a peerage in the 2010 Dissolution Honours List. On 21 June he was created a Life Peer as Baron Deben, of Winston in the County of Suffolk, and introduced in the House of Lords the same day, supported by his brother, Lord Chadlington and the composer Lord Lloyd-Webber.[22]

As a pro-European moderate, Lord Deben supported Kenneth Clarke's leadership bids.[23]

In September 2012, Lord Deben was confirmed as Chairman of the UK's independent Committee on Climate Change, succeeding Adair, Lord Turner. The committee advises the UK Government on setting and meeting carbon budgets and on preparing for the impacts of climate change. However, his relatives' involvement with the Severn Barrage and David Cameron’s relatives' investment in wind turbines, all projects requiring large public subsidies but incapable of providing continuous reliable power, led Christopher Booker to question both the impartiality of Lord Deben's advice and “the state of our public life”.[24]

Personal life

Lord Deben has been married to Penelope Gardner since 1977, and lives in Suffolk. They have four children, including Ben Gummer, who has been MP for Ipswich since 2010.

He converted to the Catholic Church in 1992, having previously been a practising Anglican and a member of the General Synod of the Church of England. He has been supportive of the creation of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham for former Anglicans who have, like him, joined the Catholic Church, including serving as an Honorary Vice-President of the Friends of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.[25][26]

Styles of address

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. ↑ Castle, Stephen (27 August 1995). "Profile: John Gummer: Not as daft as he acts He can charm and he's lucky, so what holds him back?". London: The Independent. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. JOHN SELWYN GUMMER was born into a church family in Stockport in 1939. His father, Canon Selwyn Gummer (the sons were given his Christian name), was a vicar there, later becoming Canon of Rochester Cathedral. They remain close: Canon Gummer lives with the Gummers and invariably appears in the Commons to hear environment questions. A younger brother, Peter, is now chairman of Shandwick, one of the world's largest public relations firms and a paid-up member of the Tory great and good.
  2. ↑ "Company Structure". Valpak. 16 March 2014. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. Retrieved 16 March 2014. Since then we have expanded our services to cover wider areas of sustainability including waste management and recycling, carbon management, energy management and international compliance. … Board Member Position The Rt Hon John Gummer Lord Deben
  3. ↑ "Our Board". Veolia. 2011. Archived from the original on 7 October 2011. Retrieved 16 March 2014. Our Board The Rt Hon. John Gummer, Lord Deben, Chairman of the Veolia Water UK board
  4. ↑ www.castletrust.co.uk
  5. ↑ "About Us Who we are". Castle Trust. Archived from the original on 4 April 2013. Retrieved 16 March 2014. Non-Executive Directors … The Rt Hon. John Gummer, Lord Deben
  6. ↑ www.bluemarinefoundation.com
  7. ↑ www.parliament.uk
  8. ↑ Canon Gummer's obituary in The Independent
  9. ↑ www.theguardian.com
  10. ↑ www.discoverwildlife.com
  11. ↑ www.rspb.org.uk
  12. ↑ www.foe.co.uk
  13. ↑ "John Gummer: Beef eater". BBC News Online. 11 October 2000.
  14. ↑ "Waving goodbye to Parliament". BBC News Online. 7 May 2010.
  15. ↑ Video on YouTube
  16. ↑ "The Threat to Aldeburgh Hospital: an Update from John Gummer". http://www.ixxi.co.uk/lof/gummer.pdf
  17. ↑ "UK Parliament – Early Day Motions By Details". Edmi.parliament.uk. 24 May 2005. Retrieved 29 April 2010.
  18. ↑ Quality of Life Challenge
  19. ↑ Winnett, Robert (10 May 2009). "John Gummer claimed more than £9,000 a year for gardening on MPs' expenses". London: The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
  20. ↑ "Review of past ACA payments" (PDF). House of Commons Members Estimate Committee. 4 February 2010. Retrieved 5 February 2010.
  21. ↑ "Full list of MPs' expenses repayments ..in order of amount repayable". BBC news. 4 February 2010. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
  22. ↑ House of Lords Debates 21 June 2010 v 719 c 1159
  23. ↑ Prince, Rosa (30 December 2009). "John Gummer: mole charge MP to quit Parliament". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  24. ↑ Christopher Booker (25 August 2012). "The tangled tale of Lord Deben and a dodgy Severn barrage". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  25. ↑ "About". Friends of the Ordinariate. Retrieved 16 October 2014.
  26. ↑ "Minister to the Ministers". The Tablet. 29 January 2011. Retrieved 16 October 2014.
  27. ↑ "John Gummer MP, Suffolk Coastal". TheyWorkForYou. Retrieved 29 April 2010.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
James Dickens		 Member of Parliament for Lewisham West
1970–1974 		Succeeded by
Christopher Price
Preceded by
Harwood Harrison		 Member of Parliament for Eye
1979–1983 		Constituency abolished
New constituency Member of Parliament for Suffolk Coastal
1983–2010 		Succeeded by
Therese Coffey
Political offices
Preceded by
Cecil Parkinson		 Chairman of the Conservative Party
1983–1985 		Succeeded by
Norman Tebbit
Paymaster-General
1984–1985 		Succeeded by
Kenneth Clarke
Preceded by
John MacGregor		 Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
1989–1993 		Succeeded by
Gillian Shephard
Preceded by
Michael Howard		 Secretary of State for the Environment
1993–1997 		Succeeded by
John Prescott
as Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions
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