Tobias Ellwood

Tobias Ellwood
MP

Ellwood in 2014
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Minister for the Middle East and Africa
Assumed office
15 July 2014
Prime Minister David Cameron
Theresa May
Preceded by Hugh Robertson
Member of Parliament
for Bournemouth East
Assumed office
5 May 2005
Preceded by David Atkinson
Majority 14,612 (32.6%)
Personal details
Born (1966-08-12) 12 August 1966
New York City
Nationality

British

American
Political party Conservative
Spouse(s) Hannah Ryan Ellwood
Alma mater Loughborough University, London Business School. Ellwood completed the senior executive course in National and International Studies at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Occupation Politician
Website www.tobiasellwood.com
Military service
Allegiance United Kingdom
Service/branch Royal Green Jackets
Years of service 1991–1996
Rank Captain

Tobias Martin Ellwood (born 12 August 1966, New York City) is a British-American[1] Conservative Party politician, author, and soldier. He served in the Royal Green Jackets and reached the rank of Captain. He currently serves as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bournemouth East and as UK Government Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Early life

Born in New York City, Ellwood was educated at schools in Bonn and Vienna. He attended Loughborough University from 1985–90, graduating with a BA (Hons) degree, and the Cass Business School at City University from 1997–8, where he received a Master of Business Administration degree (MBA).

After university, Ellwood served in the British Army with the Royal Green Jackets from 1991. He left the Army with the rank of Captain in 1996. After resigning his commission he became a researcher to the Conservative MP Tom King. He was elected Chairman of the Hertfordshire South West Conservative Association for a year in 1998, and has been a senior business manager with the London Stock Exchange since 1999.

Parliamentary career

Ellwood was elected as a Councillor of Dacorum Borough Council in 1999, and unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary seat of Worsley at the 2001 general election being defeated by the sitting Labour MP Terry Lewis by 11,787 votes. He achieved success at the 2005 general election, when selected to contest the safe Conservative seat of Bournemouth East to succeed the outgoing David Atkinson MP. Ellwood held Bournemouth East with a majority of 5,244 votes and remains the MP there. He made his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 19 May 2005.

A vocal supporter of David Cameron's campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Ellwood was appointed to the Opposition Whips Office in December 2005. In the July 2007 reshuffle, Cameron promoted Ellwood to his frontbench team as Shadow Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, with specific responsibilities for gambling, licensing and tourism. Ellwood has since stated that these responsibilities are also of specific interest to his Bournemouth constituents, a town of seaside tourism, numerous bars and nightclubs, and the site of a proposed casino development. He was criticised in the press after reportedly branding Liverpudlian landlords taking over pubs in his constituency as "criminals" in 2009. Ellwood claimed the comments had been taken out of context.[2]

Following his return to Parliament in 2010, he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to then Defence Secretary, Dr Liam Fox, and in October 2011 was appointed PPS to David Lidington MP, Minister for Europe at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In October 2013 Tobias was appointed PPS to Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt MP. On 15 July 2014 Tobias was appointed as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In 2011 Ellwood was reported as saying "He should be given a good hiding behind the bike shed", referring to the Conservative party rebel Mark Pritchard. He later claimed he was joking.[3]

In 2010 Ellwood was threatened with arrest outside the House of Commons by the police after confronting them over an anti-war protestor.[4]

Ellwood has also been appointed a Member of the Parliamentary Delegation to the NATO Assembly, 2014 and Parliamentary Advisor to the Prime Minister for the 2014 NATO Summit. He is a proponent of "double summer time".[5]

In 2011, Ellwood served on the Special Select Committee set up to scrutinise the Bill which became the Armed Forces Act 2011.[6] He was also a member of the Public Bill Committee for the Defence Reform Act 2014.[7]

In May 2014 he was one of seven unsuccessful candidates for the chairmanship of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee.[8]

In 2015, he flouted public opinion and backed the move by IPSA to increase salaries for politicians by 10% when the rest of the public sector are on a freeze of 1%.[9] He said he was left "counting the pennies".[10]

In September 2015, The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority named Tobias Ellwood and 26 current and former MPs who failed to settle sums of up to £500 the previous year in overclaimed expenses, forcing them to be written off.[11]

Publications

Tobias has written the following recent publications:

Personal life

In July 2005, Ellwood married Hannah Ryan, a corporate lawyer, in East Yorkshire. He has a sister, Charlotte Ellwood-Aris. His brother, Jonathan, who was the Director of Studies at the International School Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, was killed in the 2002 Bali bombing.[12][13]

In June 2009 Ellwood was beaten by a gang of youths after confronting them for playing football in the street.[14]

References

  1. ↑ https://twitter.com/Tobias_Ellwood/status/674712090678923264?lang=en
  2. ↑ Waddington, Marc (6 October 2009). "Tory MP launches 'Liverpool criminals' slur". Liverpool Echo. Retrieved 21 May 2015.
  3. ↑ Walters, Simon; Carlin, Brendan (26 June 2011). "Tory Tobias Ellwood (6ft 2in ex-Army captain) said 'He should be given a good hiding behind the bike shed' of party rebel Mark Pritchard (5ft 8in ex-council house boy) in circus animals row". Daily Mail. London.
  4. ↑ Codd, Joanna (10 September 2010). "Bournemouth MP Tobias Ellwood threatened with arrest outside House of Commons". Bournemouth Echo. Retrieved 8 July 2015.
  5. ↑ Kirkup, James (25 November 2010). "Double summertime would 'make Britain richer, greener and happier'". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  6. ↑ "Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill". Parliament.uk. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
  7. ↑ "House of Commons Public Bill Committee on the Defence Reform Bill 2013–14". Parliament.uk. Retrieved 17 September 2013.
  8. ↑ "Defence Committee Chair election: Rory Stewart MP elected" (PDF). Parliament.uk. 14 May 2014. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  9. ↑ "MPs 10% pay rise approved - a week after George Osborne imposed a 1% pay freeze on all other public sector workers". independent.co.uk. 16 July 2015. Retrieved 23 February 2016.
  10. ↑ Bennett, Owen (20 July 2015). "Tory MP Tobias Ellwood Apologises After Claiming His £90k Salary Left Him 'Watching The Pennies'". The Huffington Post UK. Retrieved 23 February 2016.
  11. ↑ "MPs' expenses: Ipsa 'names and shames' those who ignored repayment requests". theguardian.com. 10 September 2015. Retrieved 23 February 2016.
  12. ↑ Craig, Olga (20 October 2002). "They knew bag 157 held their brother's remains". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 8 July 2015.
  13. ↑ Begley, Charles; Johnson, Andrew (27 October 2002). "Briton killed in Bali blast is buried while others wait". The Independent. London. Retrieved 8 July 2015.
  14. ↑ "MP beaten after confronting gang". BBC News. 21 June 2009. Retrieved 21 June 2009.

News items

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