James Arbuthnot

The Right Honourable The Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom PC
Chairman of the Defence Select Committee
In office 13 July 2005 – 14 May 2014
Preceded by	Bruce George
Succeeded by	Rory Stewart
Shadow Secretary of State for Trade
In office 6 November 2003 – 6 May 2005
Leader	Michael Howard
Preceded by	Tim Yeo (Trade and Industry)
Succeeded by	David Willetts (Trade and Industry)
Opposition Chief Whip in the House of Commons
In office 23 June 1997 – 18 September 2001
Leader	William Hague
Preceded by	Alastair Goodlad
Succeeded by	David Maclean
Minister of State for Defence Procurement
In office 6 July 1995 – 2 May 1997
Prime Minister	John Major
Preceded by	Roger Freeman
Succeeded by	John Gilbert
Member of Parliament for North East Hampshire Wanstead and Woodford (1987–1997)
In office 11 June 1987 – 30 March 2015
Preceded by	Patrick Jenkin
Succeeded by	Ranil Jayawardena
Member of the House of Lords
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 October 2015
Personal details
Born	(1952-08-04) 4 August 1952 Deal, Kent, England
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Emma née Broadbent (styled professionally as Judge Emma Arbuthnot, or formally as The Baroness Arbuthnot of Edrom)
Children	4
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge Inns of Court
Website	www.jamesarbuthnot.com

UK Baron's coronet

James Norwich Arbuthnot, Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom, PC (born 4 August 1952) is a British Conservative Party politician. He was returned as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wanstead and Woodford from 1987 to 1997, and then MP for North East Hampshire from 1997 to 2015.

Arbuthnot served as Chairman of the Defence Select Committee from 2005 to 2014,^[1] before being nominated as a Life Peer in the Dissolution Peerages List 2015 of August 2015.^[2]

Created Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom, of Edrom in the County of Berwick, on 1 October 2015,^[3] Lord Arbuthnot sits on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords.

Eton College Chapel

Early life

Arbuthnot was born in Deal, Kent, the son of Sir John Arbuthnot MBE TD, MP for Dover between 1950 and 1964, and Margaret Jean Duff.^[4] He was educated at Wellesley House School in Broadstairs and Eton College, where he was Captain of School, before going up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a Law degree (MA) in 1974.^[5]

Arbuthnot was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1975 and became a practising barrister. An active member of the Chelsea Conservative Association, he was elected a Councillor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in 1978 remaining a Councillor until being elected to the House of Commons in 1987.^[6] In 1980 he became the Vice-Chairman of the Chelsea Conservative Association.

Arbuthnot contested the Cynon Valley seat, in the Labour heartland of industrial South Wales, at the 1983 general election and was defeated by Ioan Evans. A year later in 1984, Evans died and Arbuthnot fought the resulting by-election, but he was again defeated by the Labour candidate, Ann Clwyd.

Member of Parliament

In Government (1988–1997)

In the 1987 general election Arbuthnot was chosen to contest the safe Conservative seat of Wanstead and Woodford, as the sitting MP, Patrick Jenkin, was standing down. Arbuthnot won the seat and increased the Conservative majority by over 2,000 to 16,412.^[7]

In 1988 he became the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Archie Hamilton at the Ministry of Defence, and in 1990 became the PPS to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Peter Lilley. He entered the John Major government after the 1992 general election when he was made an Assistant Government Whip. He was promoted in 1994 as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Social Security. The following year he was promoted to Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, where he remained until the end of the Major government in 1997.

Arbuthnot stated that one of his most pleasing parliamentary achievements was "organising an all-party meeting with the Prime Minister for the exoneration of the pilots of the Chinook that crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994".

In Opposition (1997–2010)

Arbuthnot's seat of Wanstead and Woodford was abolished at the 1997 general election, when he was selected for the new seat of North East Hampshire. In Opposition, he was a member of William Hague's Shadow Cabinet as the Conservative Party's Chief Whip until the 2001 general election when he returned to the backbenches. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1998.

Arbuthnot returned to the Shadow Cabinet under Michael Howard as Shadow Trade Secretary in 2003, but stood down after the 2005 general election. Since that election he served as the Chairman of the influential Defence Select Committee and was Chair of the Special Select Committee set up to scrutinise the Bill that became the Armed Forces Act 2011.^[8] He is a Senior Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute.

Arbuthnot was the Parliamentary Chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel.^[9] He was also a member of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation, established in October 2009.^[10]

In the 2009 expenses scandal, Arbuthnot apologised and repaid the public money he had claimed for his swimming pool to be cleaned.^[11] Later that year, he was further criticised in the press for £15,000 of expenses he claimed for upkeep at his second home, including tree surgery and painting his summer house.^[12]

In Government (2010–2015)

In June 2011 Arbuthnot announced that he would not contest the next general election.^[13] On 16 January 2015, he publicly declared his atheism, stating "the pressure on a Conservative politician, particularly of keeping quiet about not being religious, is very similar to the pressure that there has been about keeping quiet about being gay"; he later clarified that he is not gay.^[14]

Personal life

On 6 September 1984, Arbuthnot married Emma Louise (now SenIor District Judge (Chief Magistrate) the Lady Arbuthnot of Edrom),^[15][16] daughter of Michael Broadbent MW, Wine Director of Christie's.

He is a direct descendant of James V of Scotland.^[4] He and his wife have one son (The Hon. Alexander Arbuthnot, born 1986) and three daughters (The Hon. Kate Arbuthnot, born 1989; The Hon. Leaf Arbuthnot, born 1992; The Hon. Alice Arbuthnot, born 1998). Lord and Lady Arbuthnot divide their time between London and Berkshire.

Arms

See also

• Clan Arbuthnott
• Court of Lord Lyon
• Disclosure of expenses of British Members of Parliament

References

External links

• North East Hampshire Conservative Association
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Arbuthnot family tree
• Burke's Peerage & Baronetage online