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Sir Peter Bottomley MP
Member of Parliament for Worthing West
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 May 1997
Preceded by	Constituency Created
Majority	11,729 (23.9%)
Member of Parliament for Eltham Woolwich West (1975–1983)
In office 26 June 1975 – 1 May 1997
Preceded by	William Hamling
Succeeded by	Clive Efford
Personal details
Born	(1944-07-30) 30 July 1944 (age 67) Newport, Shropshire, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Virginia Garnett
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge

Sir Peter James Bottomley (born 30 July 1944) is a British Conservative Party politician. He is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Worthing West. A globalist, Bottomley has been Chairman of the All-Party United Nations Group.

Early life[link]

Bottomley was born in Newport, Shropshire, the son of Sir James Bottomley, retired from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and of the late Barbara, née Vardon, a social worker. After seven school changes before the age of eleven, he was educated at a junior high school in Washington, D.C. and then Westminster School before reading economics at Trinity College, Cambridge, following his father, grandfather, father-in-law and father-in-law's father to the College. His supervisor was James Mirrlees, who later gained the Nobel prize for Economics. After university, he became a lorry driver and joined the Transport and General Workers Union before moving on to industrial sales and industrial relations.^[1] In the early 1970s he co-founded in South Lambeth the Neighbourhood Council, resulting in the creation of football pitches and other facilities at Larkhall Park. His last job before entering Parliament was putting lights outside theatres and cinemas in London's West End.

Member of Parliament[link]

Bottomley contested the Woolwich West parliamentary seat in the February 1974 General Election and in October failing to defeat the sitting Labour MP William Hamling. William Hamling died on 20 March 1975, and in the space of 18 months, Bottomley faced the electors of Woolwich West for the third time at the June by-election in the last year Harold Wilson led the Labour government. Peter Bottomley was elected as the Conservative MP for Woolwich West on 26 June 1975 with a majority of 2,382, and held this marginal seat and its successor, Eltham, in Parliament for the next 22 years. Margaret Thatcher was apparently surprised to be told by him that Ian Smith in Rhodesia was morally wrong, a military loser in the longer term and on either count should be told he would not have Conservative support.

In 1978 he became the President of the Conservative Trade Unionists, a position he held for two years. Before the 1979 General Election, Peter Bottomley became a trustee with Christian Aid in 1978 until 1984. In 1978 as member of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group, he campaigned to help delay the anticipated assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and represented the British Council of Churches at the funeral in El Salvador in 1980 when 14 people died around him.  In 1979, he made a visit to Washington DC days before the defeat of the Vote of Confidence in 1979 to help persuade the United States Senate that Margaret Thatcher if Prime Minister would not lift sanctions on Southern Rhodesia nor would recognise the government of Bishop Abel Muzorewa.  He was for some years a member of the Conservative Monday Club despite disagreeing with their policies on immigration, race relations, Rhodesia and South Africa. He has been chairman of the Church of England's Children's Society, a trustee of Mind and of Nacro and on the policy committee of One Parent Families. He served on the successor committee to the Archbishop of Canterbury's commission Faith in the City and chaired the churches' review group on the Churches Main Committee. He is a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee and has been appointed the Parliamentary Warden at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. He is leader of the United Kingdom delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

In 1982, he became the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Cranley Onslow in 1982. Peter Bottomley's seat of Woolwich West had minor boundary changes and a name change. Bottomley fought the new seat of Eltham which he won by over 7,500 votes. Following the 1983 General Election, Peter Bottomley became the PPS to the Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Security Norman Fowler.

Member of Thatcher Government[link]

After nine years on the backbenches, Bottomley became a member of Margaret Thatcher's government when he was appointed as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the then Department for Employment in 1984, moving sideways at the Department of Transport in 1986 to become the Minister of Roads and Traffic. In 1989 he moved sideways again to the Northern Ireland Office. He was dropped by Margaret Thatcher in 1990, when he briefly became PPS to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Brooke. He has been a captain of the Parliamentary football team, no longer wins the parliamentary swimming competition and organises the annual dinghy sailing against the House of Lords, claiming never to have done worse than second. He was captain of the Commons eight, winning the first Thames rowing race in gigs against the Lords 2007.

As backbencher[link]

Since 1990 he has been a backbencher, described as a maverick but not a rebel^{[citation needed]}. Peter Bottomley decided not to contest Eltham after major boundary change at the 1997 General Election, but sought nomination elsewhere. Following the retirement of the veteran Conservative MP Terence Higgins, Bottomley contested the newly formed constituency Worthing West, won with a majority of over 9,000, now built to over 12,000 with 50% of the vote. He has held the seat comfortably since and has now been a Member of Parliament for 36 years and is one of the nine longest serving MPs^{[citation needed]}. In 2002-2003 he was Master of the Worshipful Company of Drapers.

Bottomly is in the most parliamentary groups of all MPs.^[2] He was Chairman of the All-Party United Nations Group, is co-Chairman of PACTS the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety and vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Flag Group ^[3]

His campaigns have included KWASH, Keeping the Worthing and Southlands hospital; clemency for Krishna Maharaj; changing the troublesome system of Modernising Medical Careers for doctors in training and now tackling the absurdities of a hospital consultant having up to 20 computer names with changing passwords.^{[citation needed]}

Peter Bottomley has been a long time^{[citation needed]} supporter of the "frozen" British pensioners living overseas, living in mainly Commonwealth countries (47 out of 54) who have their British state pension frozen at the rate at which it is first paid or as at the date of migration^{[citation needed]}. British pensioners living in 7 Commonwealth countries and those living in a number of non-Commonwealth countries have their British state pensions uprated each year, just as if they were living in the UK, despite all pensioners having paid into the National Insurance fund under exactly the same rules.^[4]

Personal life[link]

In 1967 he married Virginia Garnett who later became a social scientist, an MP, a Cabinet Minister, and a life peer as Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone. They have a son and two daughters who went to Trinity College. They live in Worthing, West Sussex, Milford, Surrey and Westminster.^{[citation needed]}

His brother was a Lambeth councillor; his brother-in-law was mayor of Cambridge; a first cousin was a Wandsworth councillor; his first cousins twice removed included Lord Tranmire who as Robin Turton MP for Thirsk and Malton for 44 years was Father of the House; Sir Robin Chichester-Clark MP and his brother Lord Moyola who as Major James Chichester-Clark served as Northern Ireland Prime Minister. His aunt's husband Ian Beddows was chairman of Wolverhampton South West when J. Enoch Powell stood down as Conservative candidate before the February 1974 general election. One niece is Kitty Ussher the economist, the former Labour MP and Minister. His great grand father Sir Richard Robinson led the Municipal Reformers, allied to the parliamentary Conservatives, to victory in the 1907 London Council election. Sir Richard's daughter Alice's husband Sir (William) Cecil Bottomley served in the Colonial Office before being the Senior Crown Agent for the Colonies. Cecil's son, Peter's father, James Bottomley was made KCMG when becoming Ambassador to South Africa when it was outside the Commonwealth. Peter's other grandmother's grandfather Sir William Lenox-Conyngham was the Drapers' Company's Agent in Northern Ireland.^{[citation needed]}

Bottomley was present at the Heysel stadium disaster in Brussels on 29 May 1985 and was present at the later stages of the rescue work at the Kings Cross fire 18 November 1987 and at the Kegworth air disaster on 8 January 1989.   He was knighted in the 2011 New Year Honours for public service.^[5][6]

References[link]

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs ^{[self-published source?][better source needed]}
• Who's Who 2008, A&C Black

External links[link]

• Peter Bottomley MP official constituency website
• Profile at the Conservative Party
• Worthing Conservatives
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Electoral history and profile at The Guardian
• Voting record at PublicWhip.org
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou.com
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Profile at BBC News Democracy Live