Stephen Dorrell
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- Not to be confused with Stephen Dorril, a widely respected authority on the security and intelligence services and a senior lecturer at Huddersfield University.
Stephen Dorrell was born in Worcester and was educated at Uppingham School and Brasenose College, Oxford where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree. He was with the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve for two years from 1971. He acted as a personal assistant to Peter Walker during the February 1974 General Election. Dorrell contested the safe Labour seat of Hull East at the October 1974 General Election but was soundly defeated by the sitting MP and present Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott by 25,793 votes. Apart from his years in governmental office Dorrell has been a director of the Faithful Group Ltd, his family industrial clothing firm. He was elected to the House of Commons at the 1979 General Election for the marginal seat of Loughborough by ousting the veteran Labour MP John Cronin by 2,348 votes, and he has remained an MP since. On his election he was the Baby of the House of Commons, an informal title for the youngest member, he was succeeded as the Baby of the House on April 9, 1981 when Bobby Sands was elected at the April 1981 Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election, however Sands died on May 5, 1981 whilst on hunger strike Long Kesh Prison. Dorrell again became the Baby of the House until August 20, 1981, when Sands's successor Owen Carron was elected at the August 1981 Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election.
Following his election to parliament in 1979 he was a member of the Transport Select Committee, and after the 1983 General Election he was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to his old boss Peter Walker who was now the Secretary of State for Energy. Stephen Dorrell was promoted to government after the 1987 General Election by the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as an Assistant Government Whip, and in 1988 became a Lord Commissioner to the Treasury 'full whip'. He was appointed as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health in 1990 under the premiership John Major. After the 1992 General Election he became the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
Stephen Dorrell was promoted to the Major Cabinet as the Secretary of State for National Heritage in 1994, and on appointment became a Member of the Privy Council. He was transferred to become the Secretary of State for Health in 1995, and remained in position until the end of the Conservative administration. With a boundary change in the 1997 election, he moved with his key rural voters into the new Charnwood Constituency, which he won comfortably with a majority of 5,900; Loughborough itself being lost to Andy Reed of Labour.
He launched a bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1997 but withdrew before the first ballot when it became clear his support amongst Conservative MPs was negligible. Instead he threw his support behind Kenneth Clarke's bid. Under William Hague he became shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment, but left the shadow cabinet in 1998, and has remained a backbencher since.
He has been married to Penelope Anne Wears Taylor since 1980 and they have three sons and a daughter and is a former patron of Christian Aid
External links
- [Stephen Dorrell MP] official site
- [ePolitix.com - Stephen Dorrell MP]
- [Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Stephen Dorrell MP]
- [TheyWorkForYou.com - Stephen Dorrell MP]
- [The Public Whip - Stephen Dorrell MP]
- [BBC News - Stephen Dorrell MP] profile 10 February, 2005
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