Liam Fox

The Right Honourable  Dr. Liam Fox  MP
Secretary of State for Defence
Incumbent
Assumed office  12 May 2010
Prime Minister	David Cameron
Preceded by	Bob Ainsworth
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
In office 6 December 2005 – 11 May 2010
Leader	David Cameron
Preceded by	Michael Ancram
Succeeded by	Bob Ainsworth
Shadow Foreign Secretary
In office 10 May 2005 – 6 December 2005
Leader	Michael Howard
Preceded by	Michael Ancram
Succeeded by	William Hague
Chairman of the Conservative Party
In office 6 November 2003 – 4 May 2005 Serving with The Lord Saatchi
Leader	Michael Howard
Preceded by	Theresa May
Succeeded by	Francis Maude
Shadow Secretary of State for Health
In office 15 June 1999 – 6 November 2003
Leader	William Hague Iain Duncan Smith
Preceded by	Ann Widdecombe
Succeeded by	Tim Yeo
Member of Parliament for North Somerset Woodspring (1992-2010)
Incumbent
Assumed office  9 April 1992
Preceded by	Constituency established
Majority	7,862 (13.6%)
Born	22 September 1961 (1961-09-22) (age 49) East Kilbride, United Kingdom
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Jesme Baird
Alma mater	University of Glasgow
Occupation	General practitioner Politician

Liam Fox (born 22 September 1961) is a British Conservative Party politician, currently the Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom and Member of Parliament (MP) for North Somerset (known as Woodspring prior to 2010).

He was appointed as a Privy Counsellor on 13 May 2010.^[1]

Early life

Fox was born and raised in East Kilbride, Scotland and brought up in a council house that his parents later bought. The only one of his siblings to be educated in the state sector, he attended St. Bride's High School. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow Medical School, graduating with MB ChB in 1983. Fox is a general practitioner (he was a GP in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, before his election to Parliament), a former Civilian Army Medical Officer and Divisional Surgeon with St John Ambulance. He is a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Whilst studying at the University of Glasgow, he was a member of the Dialectic Society and became president of the Glasgow University Conservative Association. From there he advanced through the Conservative ranks. Fox contested the Hairmyres Ward of East Kilbride District Council in May 1984, coming second – 210 votes – to the incumbent Labour Councillor, Ed McKenna.

While studying medicine at Glasgow University in the early 1980s, Fox resigned his position on the university's Students Representative Council (SRC) in protest at the council passing a motion condemning the decision of the university's Glasgow University Union (GUU) not to allow a gay students society to join the union. The SRC motion called both the union's decision and the explanations given for it "bigoted". The GUU maintained its stance regardless and the controversy was reported in the national media while leading to many other university student unions up and down the country, including Edinburgh, cutting ties with their Glasgow counterparts. Explaining his decision to resign from the SRC and support the GUU's position, Fox was quoted as saying "I'm actually quite liberal when it comes to sexual matters. I just don't want the gays flaunting it in front of me, which is what they would do." When asked about the controversy in 2008, Fox remarked that "fortunately most of us have progressed from the days when we were students more than a quarter of a century ago". ^[2]

Member of Parliament

His first attempt to get elected as an MP for a Scottish constituency ended in failure when he contested Roxburgh and Berwickshire in the 1987 General Election. Thereafter, he sought and won nomination for the English constituency of Woodspring and was successful in being elected MP for that constituency at the 1992 General Election.

In Government

A little over a year after his election in 1992, Fox was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, in June 1993. Thereafter, in July 1994, he was appointed an Assistant Government Whip. Following a limited government reshuffle in November 1995, he was appointed a Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury – a Senior Government Whip. He was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1996 to 1997.

In 1996, he brokered an accord in Sri Lanka, called the Fox Peace Plan, between Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge’s PA and the opposition UNP of Ranil Wickremesinghe, on a bipartisan approach for ending the ethnic war. However, little has happened since then to suggest that the various parties have acted in good faith in the interests of peace.^[3]

In Opposition

Shadow Cabinet

In June 1997, Fox was appointed Opposition Front Bench Spokesman on Constitutional Affairs. Between 1999 and 2003 he was the Shadow Secretary of State for Health.

In November 2003, Fox was appointed campaign manager for Michael Howard following the no-confidence vote against the Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith. Fox was made co-chairman of the party by Michael Howard when he became party leader in November 2003. After the 2005 general election he was promoted within the Shadow Cabinet to become Shadow Foreign Secretary. On 7 December 2005 he was moved to Defence by new Leader of the Opposition David Cameron MP.

Leadership bid

In September 2005, Fox announced he would join the contest to be the next leader of the Conservative party.

His campaign theme for the 2005 leadership race was based on the "broken society" theme, which he says Conservatives can address by returning emphasis to marriage and reforming welfare.

In the initial ballot of Conservative MPs, on 18 October, he gained enough support (42 votes) to avoid coming last, and put himself through to the second ballot to be held two days later.^[4]

He was eliminated with 51 votes in third place behind David Cameron (90 votes) and David Davis (57 votes). Cameron, who eventually won the leadership election, gave Fox the role of Shadow Defence Secretary.

Secretary of State for Defence

He was appointed as Secretary of State for Defence in the cabinet of David Cameron on 12 May 2010 and that weekend flew out to Afghanistan with the Foreign Secretary, William Hague and the International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell to see first hand the issues facing the troops based there.

In July 2010 he said that the dire state of the public finances meant the Armed Forces could no longer be equipped to cover every conceivable danger. He said that the strongest signal that it will have to give up one or more of these capabilities, which have been maintained at the same time as contributing to collective security pacts such as NATO. “We don’t have the money as a country to protect ourselves against every potential future threat,” he said. “We have to look at where we think the real risks will come from, where the real threats will come from and we need to deal with that accordingly. The Russians are not going to come over the European plain any day soon,” he added. Dr Fox’s admission casts doubt on the future of the 25,000 troops currently stationed in Germany. The Defence Secretary has previously said that he hoped to withdraw them at some point, leaving Britain without a presence in the country for the first time since 1945.^[5]

Positions

Iraq

He voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As Shadow Defence Secretary he has supported the Government’s position of maintaining British troops in Iraq until the security situation on the ground allows for a withdrawal of troops but has been critical of the lack of post-invasion planning and poor equipment initially provided to British troops.^[6] He supported the idea of the American Surge and believes that it has been successful.^[7] Since becoming Shadow Defence Secretary he has visited Iraq on a number of occasions.^[8]

Liam Fox in Basra, Iraq September 2008.

Afghanistan

He has been an outspoken supporter of the war in Afghanistan and the British presence there. He has been critical towards some of the European NATO partners whom he believes are not contributing enough to the effort in the more dangerous southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan.^[9] Since becoming Shadow Defence Secretary he has visited Afghanistan on five occasions.^{[10][11][12][13][14]}

In July 2010 Fox said that an early withdrawal of coalition troops from Afghanistan would risk a return of civil war and act as a "shot in the arm to jihadists" across the world, the defence secretary, Liam Fox, warned.In marked contrast to David Cameron, who pledged over the weekend to withdraw all British troops by 2015, Fox said Britain would be betraying the sacrifices of its fallen soldiers if it left "before the job is finished". British forces would be among the last to leave Afghanistan, he added, because they are stationed in Helmand, one the most dangerous provinces in the country. He said that "Were we to leave prematurely, without degrading the insurgency and increasing the capability of the Afghan national security forces, we could see the return of the destructive forces of transnational terror," he said. "Not only would we risk the return of civil war in Afghanistan, creating a security vacuum, but we would also risk the destabilisation of Pakistan with potentially unthinkable regional, and possibly nuclear, consequences."^[15]

British troops in the Sangin area of Afghanistan's Helmand province are to be replaced by US forces, the UK's Defence Secretary Liam Fox has said. The UK has suffered its heaviest losses in the area, with 99 deaths since 2001. About 1,000 Royal Marines are expected to leave and be redeployed to central Helmand by the end of 2010. Dr Fox told MPs UK forces had made "good progress" in Sangin, but the move would enable Britain to provide "more manpower and greater focus" on Helmand's busy central belt, leaving the north and south to the US. "The result will be a coherent and equitable division of the main populated areas of Helmand between three brigade-sized forces, with the US in the north and the south, and the UK-led Task Force Helmand, alongside our outstanding Danish and Estonian allies, in the central population belt," he told the House of Commons.^[16]

On 19 July 2010 Fox said that within four years the Afghan army and police should take responsibility for security, leaving British troops to work only as military trainers. The date is a full year earlier than the deadline suggested by David Cameron this month, who said he wanted most troops back by 2015. Dr Fox said: "It has always been our aim to be successful in the mission and the mission has always said that the Afghan national security forces would be able to deal with their own security by 2014. We recognise that there will be further work to do in terms of training and improving the quality of those forces beyond that, which is why we have said training forces may be available after that date. But we have made it very clear that that will not be combat forces."^[17]

Iran

He has spoken on a number of occasions regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions and believes that all options, including the use of military force, have to be on the table. He is opposed to an Iran with a nuclear weapons capability.^[18] In July 2007 he travelled to Iran.

Liam Fox meeting with General McChrystal in Kabul, Afghanistan July 2009.

NATO

He has very strong Atlanticist views. He believes that NATO is the cornerstone of the United Kingdom and Europe’s defence and that NATO must have primacy over the European Union including the right of first refusal for all matters relating to the defence of continental Europe.^[19] He has been critical of the common funding mechanism within NATO and has called for a system to be used that allows for more proportionate burden sharing between NATO member states for NATO led military operations.^[20]

The European Union

He is considered to be staunchly Eurosceptic and opposed to European defence integration as well as European political integration. He is opposed to the European Commission having any role in defence policy. He believes that the European Security and Defence Policy duplicates and takes away scarce national resources from NATO.^[21] He specifically opposes the defence provisions in the Lisbon Treaty.^[22]

Capital punishment

He does not support capital punishment.^[23]

Abortion

Although no longer religious, he is critical of abortion and supports the traditional family – for "sociological", not moral reasons.^[23][24]

Military welfare

He has claimed on a number of occasions that the Military Covenant is broken and that the British Armed Forces are being asked to do too much for what they are resourced to do.^[25][26]

Along with the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, he established the Military Covenant Commission headed by Frederick Forsyth with the aim of finding ways to improve the welfare of service members, veterans, and their families under a future Conservative Government. Fox has a particular interest in mental health issues and has criticised the current British Government for failing to adequately address the problem.^[27]

Israel

Fox is a strong supporter of Israel and is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel. In 2006 he said, "Israel’s enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together or we will all fall divided."^[28] In January 2009, referring to Israel, he also said, “British support for any ally is never unqualified. International law and values must always be obeyed.’”^[29]

Nuclear deterrent

Fox believes that Britain should maintain its continuous at sea, independent, submarine based strategic nuclear deterrent based on the Trident missile system.^[30]

Defence procurement

Fox has pledged to restructure the defence procurement process in the Ministry of Defence. He has also stated that it would be a matter of policy to see Britain’s share of global defence exports increasing under a Conservative Government.^[31].

Elevated bilateral defence relationships

Fox believes that it is in Britain’s national interest to build bilateral defence relations with key strategic partners. Fox has mentioned the United States, France, Norway, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States.^[32][33]

Liam Fox MP with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and The Rt Hon. The Baroness Thatcher.

The United States of America

He is a strong believer in the Special Relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. He is the UK Director and founding member of The Atlantic Bridge. A UK based charity that aims to preserve and promote the Special Relationship.^[34]

Fox was able to retain a good relationship with the administration of George W. Bush, despite a five year break down in relations between the Conservative and Republican parties over the Iraq War. He led the Conservative delegation to the 2008 Republican National Convention.^[35]

Expenses

In March 2010 Fox appealed Sir Thomas Legg's decision that he had over claimed £22,476 in mortgage interest payments. Fox immediately^[36] repaid the money, then appealed the decision. Fox's appeal was rejected and the decision was upheld by Sir Paul Kennedy, a former high court judge.^[37]

Fox stated that his decision to remortgage his second home to pay for redecorations and claim the higher interest repayments on his expenses represented value for money because he could have charged the taxpayer for the decorating bills directly. In his response, Sir Paul Kennedy stated: "What you claimed was not recoverable under the rules then in force. I entirely accept that, like many others, you could have made other claims if the fees office had rejected your claims for mortgage interest, and that you may well have spent some of what you raised by increasing your mortgage on your constituency home, but the evidence is imprecise, and my terms of reference only allow me to interfere if I find special reasons in your individual case showing that it would not be fair and equitable to require repayment, either at all or at the level recommended."^[36] This reportedly made him the Conservative Shadow Cabinet member with the largest over-claim on expenses, and as a result, he has been forced to repay the most money.^[38]

It was reported in June 2009 that Fox claimed expenses of more than £19,000 over the last four years for his mobile phone. Fox claimed the high bill was due to regular trips overseas, in his capacity as Shadow Defence Secretary and said he was looking for a cheaper tariff.^[39]

Breaches of parliamentary rules

In March 2010, Fox admitted breaking parliamentary rules on two occasions by visiting Sri Lanka on a trip paid for by the Sri Lankan government without declaring the trip in the Register of Members' Financial Interests in the required time of 30 days and failing to declare an interest in Sri Lanka when asking ministers how much UK aid had been given to Sri Lanka. In fact, Fox has declared all of his trips to Sri Lanka paid for by the Sri Lankan government in the Register of Members' Financial Interests.^[40] However, one trip he took in November 2007 was declared two months late. Fox blamed a "changeover of staffing responsibilities" for this error.^[41] Regarding his failure to declare an interest when asking a minister about Sri Lanka Fox said, "I should have noted an interest and will be writing to the registrar to make this clear."^[41]

Of the five trips to Sri Lanka mentioned in the BBC article only three were paid for fully by the Sri Lankan government. Those not paid in full by the Sri Lankan government were paid for by the Sri Lankan Development Trust.^[40]

In a statement, Dr Fox said: "I have been involved in attempts to promote peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka, involving all sides of the ethnic divide, since I was a foreign minister in 1997. During my most recent visit I spoke at a press conference to outline my reasons for being there. The declaration of the visit you refer to in November 2007 was highlighted in an end-of-year audit following a changeover of staffing responsibilities. The registrar was immediately notified and my register entry was updated accordingly. All visits have been fully declared on the House of Commons Register of Members' Interests and are therefore public knowledge and entirely legitimate.I do, however, recognise that when asking one question in 2008, I should have noted an interest and will be writing to the registrar to make this clear. ^[42]

Finances

Dr Fox is a registered shareholder of the medical educational firm Arrest Ltd.^[43] His estimated wealth is £1m.^[44][45]

Fox accepted a £50,000 donation from Jon Moulton, whose investment firm, Better Capital, later went on to own Gardner Aerospace, an aerospace metallic manufactured details supplier which includes component parts for both military and civilian aircraft.^[46] This potentially exposed Dr Fox to conflict of interest but neither Fox nor Moulton violated any rules with this donation.^[47] Since all Members of Parliament are required to state in what capacity they receive any donation Fox stated in his entry in the Register of Members’ Interests that he accepted the cash “in my capacity as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence”.^[48]

Personal life

On 10 June 2005, he announced his engagement to long-term girlfriend Dr Jesme Baird, 37, a fellow doctor who works at the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and is also an alumna of the University of Glasgow. They married at St Margaret's Church opposite Parliament on 17 December 2005^[49].

Styles

• Mr Liam Fox (22 September 1961-1983)
• Dr Liam Fox (1983-9 April 1992)
• Dr Liam Fox MP (9 April 1992-13 May 2010)
• The Right Honourable Liam Fox MP (13 May 2010– )

See also

• Cameron ministry

References

External links

• Dr Liam Fox MP official constituency website
• Dr Liam Fox MP Conservative Party profile
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Electoral history and profile at The Guardian
• Voting record at PublicWhip.org
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou.com
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Articles authored at Journalisted
• Website at ePolitix.com
• Profile: Liam Fox, BBC News,_16_October 2002
• Profile: Liam Fox, BBC News,_10_November 2003

Cameron cabinet (list) Cameron  · Clegg Alexander  · Cable  · Clarke  · Fox  · Duncan Smith  · Gillan  · Gove  · Hague  · Hammond  · Huhne  · Hunt  · Lansley  · May  · Mitchell  · Moore  · Osborne  · Paterson  · Pickles  · Spelman  · Strathclyde  · Warsi Also attending: Letwin  · Maude  · McLoughlin  · Willetts  · Young When on agenda: Grieve Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement · Coalition government

Secretaries of State for Defence of the United Kingdom Ministers for Defence Winston Churchill · Clement Attlee · A. V. Alexander · Manny Shinwell · Winston Churchill · The Earl Alexander of Tunis · Harold Macmillan · Selwyn Lloyd · Sir Walter Monckton · Anthony Head · Duncan Sandys · Harold Watkinson · Peter Thorneycroft Secretaries of State for Defence Peter Thorneycroft · Denis Healey · The Lord Carrington · Ian Gilmour · Roy Mason · Fred Mulley · Francis Pym · John Nott · Michael Heseltine · George Younger · Tom King · Malcolm Rifkind · Michael Portillo · George Robertson · Geoff Hoon · John Reid · Des Browne · John Hutton · Bob Ainsworth · Liam Fox