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 State for 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 Brompton, London, 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 at 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.

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

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

Early life

The eldest son of a Church of England priest, Canon Selwyn Gummer, 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. 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", 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. and Friends of the Earth described his as "the best Environment Secretary we've ever had".

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, he attempted to refute the growing evidence for BSE/Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease by feeding his 4-year-old daughter a burger before press cameras..

Gummer opposed reduction of beds at the Aldeburgh Cottage Hospital.

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. 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.

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. Consequently, the Legg Report showed that 343 MPs had been asked to repay some money with Gummer paying the 7th highest figure.

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.

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

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”.

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.

Bibliography

• 1966: When the Coloured People Come, by John Gummer, Oldbourne, ISBN 0-356-01199-2
• 1969: To Church with Enthusiasm, by John Gummer
• 1971: The Permissive Society: Fact or Fantasy?, by John Selwyn Gummer, Cassell, ISBN 0-304-93821-1
• 1974: The Christian Calendar, by Leonard W. Cowie and John Selwyn Gummer, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-76804-2
• 1987: Faith in Politics: Which Way Should Christians Vote?, by John Gummer, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, ISBN 0-281-04299-3
• 1990: Christianity and Conservatism, by John Gummer
• 1997: Green Buildings Pay, edited by B. W. Edwards, foreword by John Gummer, Spon Press, ISBN 0-419-22730-X
• 1998: From Earth Summit to Local Agenda 21: Working Towards Sustainable Development, edited by William Laffery, Katarina Eckerberg, William M. Laffery, foreword by John Gummer, Earthscan Publications, ISBN 1-85383-547-1
• 1998: Precision Agriculture: Practical Applications of New Technologies, by John Gummer and Peter Botschek, The International Fertiliser Society, ISBN 0-85310-062-4
• Weekly columnist in Estates Gazette magazine

See also

• River Deben

External links

• Debrett's People of Today
• Guardian Unlimited Politics – Ask Aristotle: John Gummer MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com – John Gummer MP
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by John Gummer
• BBC article on the burger / BSE story
• Video of BSE story from 1990 on YouTube
• Castle Trust

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