James Arbuthnot

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British politician and life peer (born 1952)

title: "James Arbuthnot" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1952-births", "living-people", "people-educated-at-eton-college", "alumni-of-trinity-college,-cambridge", "arbuthnot-family", "english-people-of-scottish-descent", "conservative-party-(uk)-mps-for-english-constituencies", "conservative-party-(uk)-life-peers", "life-peers-created-by-elizabeth-ii", "councillors-in-the-royal-borough-of-kensington-and-chelsea", "english-atheists", "members-of-lincoln's-inn", "members-of-the-privy-council-of-the-united-kingdom", "people-from-deal,-kent", "politics-of-hampshire", "uk-mps-1987–1992", "uk-mps-1992–1997", "uk-mps-1997–2001", "uk-mps-2001–2005", "uk-mps-2005–2010", "uk-mps-2010–2015", "younger-sons-of-baronets", "english-barristers", "british-post-office-scandal"] description: "British politician and life peer (born 1952)" topic_path: "politics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Arbuthnot" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary British politician and life peer (born 1952) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox officeholder"]

FieldValue
honorific-prefixThe Right Honourable
nameThe Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom
honorific-suffix
imageOfficial portrait of Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom crop 2, 2025.jpg
captionOfficial portrait, 2025
officeChairman of the Defence Select Committee
term_start13 July 2005
term_end14 May 2014
predecessorBruce George
successorRory Stewart
office3Shadow Secretary of State for Trade
leader3Michael Howard
term_start36 November 2003
term_end36 May 2005
predecessor3Tim Yeo (Trade and Industry)
successor3David Willetts (Trade and Industry)
office4Opposition Chief Whip in the House of Commons
leader4William Hague
term_start423 June 1997
term_end418 September 2001
predecessor4Alastair Goodlad
successor4David Maclean
office5Minister of State for Defence Procurement
term_start56 July 1995
term_end52 May 1997
primeminister5John Major
predecessor5Roger Freeman
successor5John Gilbert
office6Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security
primeminister6John Major
term_start620 July 1994
term_end66 July 1995
predecessor6William Astor, 4th Viscount Astor
successor6Oliver Heald
office7Member of the House of Lords
status7Lord Temporal
termlabel7Life peerage
term_start71 October 2015
office8Member of Parliament
for North East Hampshire
term_start81 May 1997
term_end830 March 2015
predecessor8Constituency created
successor8Ranil Jayawardena
office9Member of Parliament
for Wanstead and Woodford
term_start911 June 1987
term_end98 April 1997
predecessor9Patrick Jenkin
successor9Constituency abolished
birth_date
birth_placeDeal, Kent, England
partyConservative
spouse
children4
fatherSir John Arbuthnot, 1st Baronet
alma_mater{{plainlist
websitewww.jamesarbuthnot.com
::

| honorific-prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom | honorific-suffix = | image = Official portrait of Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom crop 2, 2025.jpg | caption = Official portrait, 2025 | office = Chairman of the Defence Select Committee | term_start = 13 July 2005 | term_end = 14 May 2014 | predecessor = Bruce George | successor = Rory Stewart | office3 = Shadow Secretary of State for Trade | leader3 = Michael Howard | term_start3 = 6 November 2003 | term_end3 = 6 May 2005 | predecessor3 = Tim Yeo (Trade and Industry) | successor3 = David Willetts (Trade and Industry) | office4 = Opposition Chief Whip in the House of Commons | leader4 = William Hague | term_start4 = 23 June 1997 | term_end4 = 18 September 2001 | predecessor4 = Alastair Goodlad | successor4 = David Maclean | office5 = Minister of State for Defence Procurement | term_start5 = 6 July 1995 | term_end5 = 2 May 1997 | primeminister5 = John Major | predecessor5 = Roger Freeman | successor5 = John Gilbert | office6 = Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security | primeminister6 = John Major | term_start6 = 20 July 1994 | term_end6 = 6 July 1995 | predecessor6 = William Astor, 4th Viscount Astor | successor6 = Oliver Heald | office7 = Member of the House of Lords | status7 = Lord Temporal | termlabel7 = Life peerage | term_start7 = 1 October 2015 | term_end7 = | office8 = Member of Parliament for North East Hampshire | term_start8 = 1 May 1997 | term_end8 = 30 March 2015 | predecessor8 = Constituency created | successor8 = Ranil Jayawardena | office9 = Member of Parliament for Wanstead and Woodford | term_start9 = 11 June 1987 | term_end9 = 8 April 1997 | predecessor9 = Patrick Jenkin | successor9 = Constituency abolished | birth_date = | birth_place = Deal, Kent, England | death_date = | death_place = | party = Conservative | spouse = | children = 4 | father = Sir John Arbuthnot, 1st Baronet | alma_mater = {{plainlist|

James Norwich Arbuthnot, Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom, (born 4 August 1952), is a British Conservative Party politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Wanstead and Woodford from 1987 to 1997, and then MP for North East Hampshire from 1997 to 2015.

Arbuthnot served as chairman of the Defence Select Committee from 2005 to 2014, before being nominated as a life peer in the Dissolution Peerages List 2015 of August 2015. Created Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom, of Edrom in the County of Berwick, on 1 October 2015, he sits on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords.

Early life

Arbuthnot was born at Deal, Kent, the second son of Sir John Arbuthnot, 1st Baronet, MP for Dover between 1950 and 1964, and Margaret Jean Duff. He was educated at Wellesley House School in Broadstairs and Eton College, where he was captain of School, before going up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in Law (BA) in 1974.

Arbuthnot was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1975 and became a practising barrister. An active member of the Chelsea Conservative Association, he was elected a councillor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in 1978, and remained a councillor until he was elected to the House of Commons in 1987.

Arbuthnot contested the Cynon Valley seat, in the Labour heartland of industrial South Wales, at the 1983 general election and was defeated by Ioan Evans. A year later in 1984, Evans died and Arbuthnot fought the resulting by-election, but he was again defeated by the Labour candidate, Ann Clwyd.

Member of Parliament

In Government (1988–1997)

In the 1987 general election, Arbuthnot was selected to contest the safe Conservative seat of Wanstead and Woodford, as the sitting MP, Patrick Jenkin, was standing down. Arbuthnot won the seat and increased the Conservative majority by over 2,000 to 16,412.

In 1988 he became the parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to Archie Hamilton at the Ministry of Defence, and in 1990 became the PPS to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Peter Lilley. He entered the John Major government after the 1992 general election when he was made an assistant government whip. He was promoted in 1994 as the parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Department of Social Security. The following year he was promoted to Minister for Defence Procurement, where he remained until the end of the Major government in 1997.

In Opposition (1997–2010)

Arbuthnot's seat of Wanstead and Woodford was abolished at the 1997 general election, when he was selected for the new seat of North East Hampshire. In Opposition, he was a member of William Hague's Shadow Cabinet as the Conservative Party's Chief Whip until the 2001 general election when he returned to the backbenches. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1998.

Arbuthnot returned to the Shadow Cabinet under Michael Howard as Shadow Trade Secretary in 2003, but stood down following the 2005 general election. Since that election he served as the chairman of the influential Defence Select Committee and was Chair of the Special Select Committee set up to scrutinise the Bill that became the Armed Forces Act 2011.{{cite web |url = https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmarmed/779/77901.htm |access-date = 20 September 2013 |title = Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill |publisher = parliament.uk}}

Arbuthnot was the parliamentary chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel. He was also a member of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation, established in October 2009.

In the 2009 expenses scandal, Arbuthnot apologised and repaid the public money he had claimed for his swimming pool to be cleaned. Later that year, he was further criticised in the press for £15,000 of expenses he claimed for upkeep at his second home, including tree surgery and painting his summer house.

In Government (2010–2015)

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/James_Arbuthnot_MP,_Chair,House_of_Commons_Defence_Select_Committee(9250330776).jpg" caption="Arbuthnot in 2010"] ::

In June 2011, Arbuthnot announced that he would not contest the next general election. On 16 January 2015, he publicly declared his atheism, stating "the pressure on a Conservative politician, particularly of keeping quiet about not being religious, is very similar to the pressure that there has been about keeping quiet about being gay"; he later clarified that he is not gay.

Arbuthnot has played a pivotal role in helping the subpostmasters affected by the British Post Office scandal to seek justice after the Post Office wronglyand, it has been alleged, knowinglysought and obtained convictions for theft, fraud and false accounting against a large number of them. In September 2023, he supported the £600,000 "take it or leave it" Government compensation for those wrongly convicted saying on The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4, it was "a choice", and that "for some it will be a good way of putting this behind them and getting on with their lives". Arbuthnot was portrayed by Alex Jennings in Mr Bates vs The Post Office, an ITV dramatisation of the scandal.

Personal life

On 6 September 1984, Arbuthnot married Emma Louise Broadbent, daughter of Michael Broadbent, Wine Director of Christie's. Since 2020 she has been a High Court judge, having previously served as the Senior District Judge (Chief Magistrate) for England and Wales.

Arbuthnot is the chairman of the advisory board of the UK division of multinational defence and security systems manufacturer Thales. He is a Senior Associate Fellow of the defence and security think tank Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies. He has also served as a Commissioner of the National Preparedness Commission.

He is a descendant of James V of Scotland. His middle name is after his great-great-grandfather, Norwich Duff (1792–1862). He is also a distant cousin of Gerald Arbuthnot, the former MP for Burnley.

Arms

|note = Subject to matriculation by Lord Lyon (a) he is entitled to a baron's helm but not the baronet's augmentation of honour, (b) the arms belong to his brother (c) as a peer, he is entitled to supporters. |image = [[File:Coronet of a British Baron.svg|centre|150px]][[File:Arbuthnot of Edrom Escutcheon.png|centre|200px]] |notes = The Arms depicted are those of his father and his elder brother |crest = A Peacock's Head and Neck Proper accompanied on either side by a Spray of Strawberry Leaves Vert each flowered of a Cinquefoil Argent |coronet = That of a Baron |escutcheon = Azure a Crescent between three Mullets Argent a Bordure Gules charged with two Escallops in chief and a Buck's Head cabossed Or in base |motto = Deum Laudans (Praising God) |symbolism = Arbuthnot of Kittybrewster arms

References

References

  1. "MP Profile". The Guardian.
  2. "Dissolution Peerages 2015".
  3. "notice 2410213".
  4. ''Burke's Peerage & Baronetage'' 2003, page 126
  5. "James Arbuthnot MP profile". BBC News.
  6. "Rt Hon James Arbuthnot MP profile". Conservative Party.
  7. "University of Keele – Political Science Resources – UK General Election results June 1987".
  8. "Conservative Friends of Israel – About Us".
  9. Borger, Julian. (8 September 2009). "Nuclear-free world ultimate aim of new cross-party pressure group". The Guardian.
  10. Watt, Holly. (11 May 2009). "MPs' expenses: Senior Tory James Arbuthnot charged taxpayer for pool cleaning". The Daily Telegraph.
  11. Swaine, Jon. (11 December 2009). "MPs' expenses: James Arbuthnot claimed £2,750 for tree surgery at £2m home". The Daily Telegraph.
  12. (6 June 2011). "Tory MP James Arbuthnot to step down for 'new challenge'". BBC News.
  13. (16 January 2015). "Tory MP James Arbuthnot reveals pressure to hide atheism". BBC News.
  14. "The Great Post Office Trial – Parts 1–5 – BBC Sounds".
  15. (19 September 2023). "Govt offers "eligible" Postmasters £600,000 take-it-or-leave-it compensation".
  16. Glover, Patrick. (31 December 2023). "Mr Bates vs The Post Office: cast, when to watch and more". [[Docklands & East London Advertiser]].
  17. (1 December 2007). "Who's Who". Oxford University Press.
  18. (18 October 2019). "Extradition Law Committee - timeline - UK Parliament".
  19. "LORD (JAMES) ARBUTHNOT PROFILE".
  20. "Commissioners - National Preparedness Commission".
  21. (2003). "Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage". [[Burke's Peerage]] (Genealogical Books) Ltd.
  22. (10 November 2018). "Former MP killed in WW1 finally added to Parliament's memorial". BBC News.

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