Christopher Chope

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Christopher Robert Chope OBE (born May 19, 1947) is a British barrister and Conservative Party politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Christchurch.

Christopher Chope was born in Putney, the son of a judge, and was educated at the St Andrew's School in Eastbourne and Marlborough College, before attending the University of St Andrews where he was awarded a Bachelor of Laws degree, and finished his education at the Inns of Court School of law. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1972 and was elected as a councillor in the London Borough of Wandsworth in 1974 and became the council leader in 1979; he left the council on his first election to parliament in 1983. He was awarded the OBE for his services to local government in 1982. He was one of the pioneers in the selling off of council housing stock.

He was elected as an MP at the 1983 General Election for Southampton Itchen where he defeated the SDP (and previously Labour) MP Bob Mitchell by 5,290 votes and became the first Tory MP for Southampton Itchen since the the war. Southampton Itchen was the constituency of the former Speaker of the House of Commons Horace King. He was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Peter Brooke, the Minister of State at the Treasury in 1986, before being promoted by Margaret Thatcher to serve in her government as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for the Environment later in the same year, where he was responsible for steering through the poll tax legislation. He was moved under the leadership of John Major to serve in the same rank at the Department of Transport from 1990 until he lost his Southampton Itchen seat to John Denham at the 1992 General Election by just 551 votes.

Out of parliament, Christopher Chope took up a consultancy with Ernst & Young, but was re-elected at the 1997 General Election where he regained the Christchurch seat following its fall at the 1993 Christchurch by-election caused by the death of Robert Adley. He defeated the new Liberal Democrat MP Diana Maddock by 2,165 votes and he had remained the MP there since. After his re-election he became a spokesman on the Environment, Transport and the Regions as well as being the Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party under William Hague, he left the frontbench in 1997 when he became a member of the Trade and Industry Select Committee until after the 2001 General Election when he returned to the frontbench under Iain Duncan Smith as a spokesman on the Treasury, he moved to Transport in 2002 and again stood down from frontbench politics after the 2005 General Election. He currently serves on the Chairman's Panel.

He is chairman of the Eurosceptic Conservative Way Forward group and used to be a barrister in the Chambers of Peter Rawlinson. He has been married to Christine Hutchinson since 1987 and they have a son and a daughter. A devout Christian, he has expressed views favouring capital punishment.

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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Bob Mitchell		 Member of Parliament for Southampton Itchen
1983–1992		 Succeeded by
John Denham
Preceded by
Diana Maddock		 Member of Parliament for Christchurch
1997 – present		 Incumbent
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