Giles Chichester

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Giles Chichester (born July 29, 1946) is a British politician, and Conservative Member of the European Parliament for South West England and Gibraltar.

Chichester was born in London. Since 1969 worked in family business Francis Chichester Ltd (publishers of maps, guides and educational wallcharts), founded by his father Sir Francis Chichester KBE.

He was MEP for Devon and East Plymouth from 1994 to 1999 and has represented South West England in the European Parliament since 1999. On 23 July 2004 he was elected chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.

He is a former Chairman of the Carlton Club Political Committee and is chairman of a family business publishing maps.

On 5 June 2008, Chichester stepped down as Leader of the Conservative MEPs, after it was revealed that since 1996 he had wrongly sent European parliamentary funds for secretarial and office services through a private company that he was a paid director for. ^[1] He insists he brought this to the attention of the EU Parliament, he transferred money for his personal office and staff through the account as an easier means of transferal. About 5 years ago, the EU Parliament ruled that no MEP should transfer any finances through companies of which they were members of.

David Cameron has not withdrawn the party whip from him as he did with the former Tory MP Derek Conway who now sits as an Independent. Chichester will stay on as a Conservative MEP but not their leader and will be replaced temporarily by his deputy, Philip Bushill-Matthews. ^[2] The revelation comes as whilst Leader of the Conservative MEPs, perhaps ironically Cameron tasked Chichester to review and compile a code of conduct for Tory MEPs' expenses after the embarassment of Derek Conway when it was discovered he paid his two sons for parliamentary work whilst they were full-time university students and there was no evidence they actually had done what they were getting paid for. However, Chichester admitted it was wrong and described it as a "whoopsy-daisy".

[edit] Offices Held

European Parliament
Preceded by new constituency	Member of European Parliament for South West England and Gibraltar 2004 – present	Incumbent
Preceded by new constituency	Member of European Parliament for South West England 1999–2004	Succeeded by constituency abolished
Preceded by unknown	Member of European Parliament for Devon and East Plymouth 1994–1999	Succeeded by constituency abolished