Peter Bottomley
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Sir Peter James Bottomley (born 30 July 1944) is a British Conservative Party politician who has served as a Member of Parliament since 1975. He has represented Worthing West constituency since 1997.
Political Career[edit]
Bottomley was elected as the Conservative MP for Woolwich West with a majority of 2,382, and held this marginal seat and its successor, Eltham, in Parliament for the next 22 years.
In 1982, he became the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Cranley Onslow. Peter Bottomley's seat of Woolwich West had minor boundary changes and a name change. Bottomley fought the new constituency of Eltham at the 1983 general election winning the seat by over 7,500 votes. Following the election, Peter Bottomley became the PPS to the Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Security, Norman Fowler.
After nine years on the backbenches, Bottomley became a member of Margaret Thatcher's government when he was appointed as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Employment in 1984, moving sideways to the Department of Transport in 1986 to become the Minister of Roads and Traffic. In 1989 he moved sideways again to the Northern Ireland Office. He was dropped by Thatcher in 1990, when he briefly became PPS to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Brooke.
Bottomley has since returned to the backbenches and is in more parliamentary groups than any other MP. He was Chairman of the All-Party United Nations Group, is co-Chairman of PACTS the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety and vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Flag Group
Education[edit]
After seven school changes before the age of eleven, he was educated at a junior high school in Washington, D.C. and then Westminster School before reading economics at Trinity College, Cambridge.
