Christopher Pincher MP - Who is he?

Christopher Pincher was first elected as the Conservative MP for Tamworth in 2010, being reelected in 2019 with a majority of 19,634.

The constituency of Tamworth is found in south east Staffordshire. It is largely based on the market town of Tamworth close to the M6 Toll motorway. Well served by transport links this is an economically active constituency, some thirteen miles north east of Birmingham.

The former Conservative Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, represented this area between 1830 and 1850. It lent its name to the 1834 Tamworth manifesto from which historians regularly trace the early principles of the modern Conservative Party.

However paying little attention to its historical pedigree, Labour held this seat under Tony Blair between 1997 and 2010. Although the Conservatives obtained a sizeable two thirds of the vote here in 2019, this had historically been a bell-weather marginal which voted with the government of the day. Some two thirds of the Tamworth electorate backed Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum.

Pincher served as the Deputy Government Chief Whip up until June 2022. He resigned after a newspaper alleged that he groped two men at the Carlton Club in London. In his resignation letter Mr Pincher said he had drunk far too much and ’embarrassed myself and other people’. He subsequently lost the Conservative whip in the House of Commons.

In July 2023, the House of Commons standards committee published its report into the conduct of Pincher.

The report read: “Mr Pincher’s conduct was completely inappropriate, profoundly damaging to the individuals concerned, and represented an abuse of power. We therefore agree with the Commissioner that Mr Pincher’s conduct on 29 and 30 June 2022 breached paragraph 17 of the 2019 Code”.

“The breach we are considering is solely whether Mr Pincher has caused significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House as a whole, or of its Members generally.

“The perception that MPs can engage in such conduct with impunity does significantly impact public perception of the House and its Members. We therefore recommend that Mr Pincher be suspended from the service of the House for 8 weeks”.

Pincher subsequently lost an appeal over the report and resigned his House of Commons seat in September 2023.

Labour won the following Tamworth by-election with a significant swing to the party. In the constituency, the Conservatives suffered their worst by-election defeat to Labour in modern history. New MP Sarah Edwards took the Staffordshire seat with a majority of 1,316.

What’s at stake in the Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth by-elections?

In parliament, Pincher previously served as the Minister for Housing between 2020 and 2022, and as Minister of State at the Foreign Office between 2019 and 2020. Prior to that he was Government Deputy Chief Whip during the Parliamentary Brexit disputes in Parliament of 2018 and 2019.

Pincher was born in 1969 in Walsall and grew up in Wombourne near Wolverhampton. He studied history at the London School of Economics and worked for an IT consultancy firm before being elected to Parliament. He previously worked in Saudi Arabia.

Pincher supported Leave in the 2016 EU referendum.

He is known for his opposition to the HS2 rail scheme.

He describes his interests as playing golf, watching horse racing and motor racing, and reading. He writes a wine column for Critic Magazine.