Nick Herbert

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Nick Herbert bigraphy, stories - British politician

Nick Herbert : biography

7 April 1963 –

Nicholas Le Quesne "Nick" Herbert (born 7 April 1963) is a British Conservative Party politician and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Arundel and South Downs. He was Minister of State for Police and Criminal Justice, with his time split between the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice from 2010-2012.

Personal life

Herbert joined his long-term partner, Jason Eades, in civil partnership in early January 2009 after a 10-year relationship.

Political career

He unsuccessfully contested the Northumberland seat of Berwick-upon-Tweed at the 1997 general election where he finished in third place some 8,951 votes behind the veteran Liberal Democrat MP Alan Beith.

In 2001 he co-founded the Reform think tank which focuses on reforming public services via private sector involvement and de-regulation.

His selection to contest the West Sussex seat of Arundel and South Downs at the 2005 general election did not come about without incident. The sitting Conservative MP, Howard Flight, had been forced to resign as a vice chairman of the party and had the whip removed by Michael Howard in 2005 after he had told a Conservative Way Forward meeting that the Conservatives would have to make more cuts than they were promising., BBC News. With no whip, he was not considered as an approved candidate and, despite protest and the local association refusing to select a new candidate, he finally resigned just a month before the election., BBC News. Herbert was selected, BBC News. and elected, holding the seat with a slightly reduced majority of 11,309. He made his maiden speech on 6 June 2005.

On his election, he became the first "out" gay Conservative MP to be open about his homosexuality at the time he was initially elected (he is not the first out gay Conservative MP; that distinction goes to Alan Duncan, who voluntarily came out in 2002, BBC News. and Michael Brown, who was ‘outed’ in 1994). Herbert lives in Arundel with his civil partner Jason Eades.

Shadow Cabinet

After his election to Parliament, Herbert joined the Home Affairs Select Committee. After David Cameron became leader of the Conservative Party, Herbert became a Shadow Minister for home affairs on 16 December 2005. This meant he had to leave the Home Affairs Select Committee. In July 2007, he joined the Shadow Cabinet for the new position of Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, shadowing veteran Labour minister Jack Straw. On 19 January 2009 he was made Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Government

On the Coalition forming between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in May 2010, Herbert was appointed as a Minister of State at the Home Office with responsibility for policing and at the Ministry of Justice with responsibility for criminal justice. To undertake this role, Herbert was appointed a Privy Counsellor on 9 June 2010. One of the policies Herbert championed was the introduction of elected Police and Crime Commissioners to replace police authorities.

Herbert decided to step down from Government at the time of David Cameron’s first major reshuffle in September 2012 when he was not offered a promotion to the Cabinet.

Background

Herbert was educated at Haileybury and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read law and land economy. He was appointed as the director of public affairs at the British Field Sports Society in 1990 and remained in that position for six years.

He joined Business for Sterling in 1998 as their chief executive where he helped launch the campaign against adopting the Euro currency, before becoming a director of the think tank Reform in 2000 until his election to parliament in 2005.