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John is 49 and married with two daughters aged 14 and 10. His interests include tennis, charity fundraising, walking and history.
Because the family moved with his father who was in the Army before joining a construction company, John attended nine state and grammar schools by the age of 16. He finished his sixth form studies at Queen's College, Taunton. Before University, he travelled and drove new cars from Frankfurt and London to their owners in Iran. Having studied Law, History and Politics at Cambridge, John joined the Army in 1984 (Royal Regiment of Fusiliers). After Sandhurst, he served in Berlin and Northern Ireland as a platoon commander, and then with the United Nations in Cyprus, before finishing in Germany as the Battalion Operations Officer.
On leaving the Army as a Captain in 1988, he became a Fund Manager, specialising in charities and private clients, and was a Director of Hendersons and then Rothschild Asset Management. He remains a member of the Securities Institute and, since leaving the City, has assisted charities and individuals monitor their fund managers.
John's Experience
John first became involved in local politics in Chelmsford, Essex in 1990. He was the Conservative Parliamentary candidate in Basildon in 1997, and was beaten by the small margin of 13,000!
John was elected as the Conservative MP for Billericay and District in 2001. He served on Parliament's Education Select Committee and then became a Shadow Health Minister in 2002. However, he resigned from this post in 2003 in order to vote against the war in Iraq.
He was subsequently re-appointed as a Shadow Health Minister and responsibilities included cancer services (he is vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer), nursing and long-term conditions such as Parkinson's Disease, MS and Epilepsy. In summer 2007, John moved from Health to join the Opposition Whips Office.
Among his other Parliamentary interests, John has been campaigning on the issue of civil liberties, the need for a more constructive engagement with Iran, for greater Government recognition of our Nuclear Test Veterans, and for the lifting of the ban on NHS top-up payments (for which he was nominated a Charity Champion in 2008).