Gary Streeter

Gary Nicholas Streeter (born 2 October 1955 in Gosport) is a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.

Since 1997 he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for South West Devon, having previously been the Member of Parliament for Plymouth Sutton between 1992 and 1997. He was re-elected as MP in 2010 and 2015, gaining 56% and 56.6% of the votes cast, respectively.^[1]

Early life

He went to Tiverton Grammar School on Barrington Street in Tiverton, where he was Head Boy from 1972 to 1973, then King's College London, where he gained a first class honours degree in Law. From 1984–98, he was a solicitor and partner at Foot and Bowden (now called Foot Ansteys) in Plymouth, where he specialised in company and employment law. He was a councillor, initially for the Social Democratic Party (SDP), on Plymouth City Council from 1986–92.

Parliamentary career

Streeter served as a junior minister in the Lord Chancellor's Department under John Major from 1996 until the defeat of the Major Government in 1997, and was Shadow Secretary of State for International Development in the Shadow Cabinet of William Hague^[2] from 1998 until the new Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith returned him to the backbenches in 2001.

He is currently a member of the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission and is the member of the committee responsible for answering oral questions in Parliament on behalf of the Electoral Commission. He assumed the role after Sir Peter Viggers stepped down during the MPs' expenses scandal. His own expenses for 2008/09 were £162,719, ranking 158th out of 647 MPs.

In March 2012, Streeter was one of three MPs who signed a letter to the Advertising Standards Authority asking it to reverse its decision to stop the Christian group "Healing on the Streets of Bath" from making explicit claims that prayer can heal. The letter called for the ASA to provide "indisputable scientific evidence" that faith healing did not work. Another signer, Tim Farron, subsequently elected leader of the Liberal Democrats, later wrote that the letter was not "well-worded" and that he should not have signed it "as it was written".^[3]

In 2013 Streeter referred to the "familiar glint in the swivelled eyes of the purists" within his own party in an article attacking the divisions caused by those activists who were calling for a referendum on EU membership.^[4] The remark followed allegations that senior members of the government had characterised Eurosceptic activists as "swivel-eyed loons". Streeter argued that the result of party infighting over the issue would be "a Labour-led government bend[ing] the knee to Brussels".^[4]

Streeter was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 referendum.^[5]

Personal life

He married Janet Stevens in 1978 in Barnstaple and they have a son and daughter. The family live near Plympton in Devon. In the 2015 General Election his son Gareth Streeter stood as the Conservative candidate for the constituency of Rother Valley in South Yorkshire. He came in third place behind the incumbent MP Sir Kevin Barron and runner up Cllr Allen Cowles of UKIP. He is a committed Christian who believes in faith healing.^[6]

References

External links

• Official website

• 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
• Articles authored at Journalisted