Gary Streeter

Gary Nicholas Streeter (born 2 October 1955 in Gosport) is a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.

Since 1997 he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for South West Devon, having previously been the Member of Parliament for Plymouth Sutton between 1992 and 1997. He was re-elected as MP on 7 May 2010, gaining 56% of the votes cast.

Early life

He went to Tiverton Grammar School on Barrington Street in Tiverton, then King's College London, where he gained a first class honours degree in Law. From 1984-98, he was a solicitor and partner at Foot and Bowden (now called Foot Ansteys) in Plymouth, where he specialised in company and employment law. He was a councillor, initially for the Social Democratic Party (SDP), on Plymouth City Council from 1986-92.

Parliamentary career

Streeter served as a junior minister in the Lord Chancellor's Department under John Major from 1996 until the defeat of the Major Government in 1997, and was Shadow International Development Secretary in the Shadow Cabinet of William Hague from 1998 until the new Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith returned him to the backbenches in 2001.

He is currently a member of the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission and is the member of the committee responsible for answering oral questions in Parliament on behalf of the Electoral Commission. He assumed the role after Sir Peter Viggers stepped down during the MPs' expenses controversy. His own expenses for 2008/09 were £162,719, ranking 158th out of 647 MPs.

In March 2012, Streeter was one of three MPs who signed a letter to the Advertising Standards Authority asking it to reverse its decision to stop the Christian group "Healing on the Streets of Bath" from making explicit claims that prayer can heal. The letter called for the ASA to provide "indisputable scientific evidence" that faith healing did not work. Another signer, Tim Farron, subsequently wrote that the letter was not "well-worded" and that he should not have signed it "as it was written".^[2]

In 2013 Streeter referred to the "familiar glint in the swivelled-eyes of the purists" within his own party in an article attacking criticised divisions caused by activists calling for an EU referendum.^[3] The remark followed allegations that senior members of the government had characterised Eurosceptic activists as "swivel eyed loons". Streeter argued the result of part infighting over the issue would be "a Labour-led government bend[ing] the knee to Brussels"^[3]

Personal life

He married Janet Stevens in 1978 in Barnstaple and have a son and daughter. The family live near Plympton in Devon. He is a committed Christian who believes in faith healing.^[4]

References

External links

• Gary Streeter MP official site
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Gary Streeter MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Gary Streeter MP
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Gary Streeter
• BBC Politics page

News items

• Development spokesman in 2001