Nigel Evans

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Nigel Martin Evans (born 10 November 1957) is a British politician. He is the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for the Ribble Valley constituency.

Nigel Evans was born in Swansea, Wales and was educated locally at the Dynevor School and the University of Wales, Swansea where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics in 1979. He was involved in the management of his family's newsagents and convenience store in Swansea. He was elected as a councillor to the West Glamorgan County Council in 1985 and became the deputy Conservative group leader in 1990 before standing down as a councillor in 1991.

He contested Swansea West at the 1987 General Election but was defeated by former minister Alan Williams by 7,062 votes. He was selected to contest the Pontypridd by-election, 1989 following the death of Brynmor John. He was defeated by Kim Howells in Pontypridd by 10,794 votes. He fought his third election in one parliament when he was selected to contest the very safe Conservative seat of Ribble Valley in the by-election caused by the resignation of David Waddington to become the Leader of the House of Lords in 1990, but was again defeated at the Ribble Valley by-election on March 7, 1991 when Mike Carr gained the seat for the Liberal Democrats by 4,601 votes.

Nigel Evans regained Ribble Valley from the Liberal Democrats at the 1992 General Election defeating Carr by 6,542 votes and has been the MP there since. He made his maiden speech on May 20, 1992[1]. He was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary PPS to the Secretary of State for Employment David Hunt in 1993 and remained Hunt's PPS when he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1994. In 1995, Evans became the PPS to Tony Baldry the Minister of State at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1995, and in 1996 became the PPS to the new Secretary of State for Wales William Hague.

With the Conservative Party not winning a single seat in Wales at the 1997 General Election, Evans was drafted onto the frontbench by John Major as a spokesman on Welsh Affairs. He became a member of the Shadow Cabinet under both William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith as the Shadow Secretary of State for Wales from 2001 to 2003. He had publicly criticized the government for not having a dedicated Secretary of State for Wales in a cabinet post, so when the new Conservative leader Michael Howard decided to take the role outside of the Shadow Cabinet, Evans chose to return to the backbenches.

He became a member of both the Trade and Industry the Welsh Affairs Select Committees in 2003; and in November 2004, he was appointed a Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party, with specific responsibility for overseeing Conservatives Abroad and mobilising the Conservative vote overseas. He returned to the back-benches on the election of David Cameron in 2005 deciding to dedicate more time to his work on the Council of Europe and Western European Union. He has been a member of the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee since the 2005 General Election.

He has worked on three United States of America presidential elections in New York, Florida, and California.

On the issue of Climate Change, Evans has expressed his belief in the solar variation theory and the causes of warming on the earth and on other planets being sunspots,^[1] and praised the TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle as "one of the best and most controversial programmes I've ever seen on television, particularly for those who don't like being spoonfed by Al Gore".^[2]