Paul Uppal
Paul Singh Uppal is a Conservative Party politician from the United Kingdom. He was elected as MP for the constituency of Wolverhampton South West in the 2010 general election, winning the seat from Labour Party MP Rob Marris, with 16,344 votes and a majority of 691.
Political Career[edit]
Paul Uppal was selected as Conservative Party candidate for Birmingham Yardley less than three months before the 2005 general election. The seat was traditionally a Conservative-Labour marginal, but became a three-way marginal at the 1992 general election and a Labour-Liberal Democrat marginal after the 1997 general election, with the Conservatives pushed into an increasingly distant third place. Uppal came third in 2005, winning just 2,970 votes, with Liberal Democrat John Hemming replacing the retiring Labour MP Estelle Morris.
He was selected as the Conservative party candidate on 16th February 2007, in an open primary in which all residents of Wolverhampton South West had a vote, not just party members, held at Molineux Stadium. The seat was traditionally a safe Conservative seat, held by Enoch Powell from 1950 to 1974 and then by Nicholas Budgen until 1997, when it became a Labour marginal held by Jenny Jones until 2001, and then Rob Marris until 2010. However, the Labour majorities gradually reduced at each election, and Uppal won the seat for the Conservatives in 2010.
In July 2010, he was elected Chairman of the All Party Urban Development Group. In October 2011, he voted against a referendum on the UK's membership of European Union. In September 2012, he was appointed secretary to David Willetts at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Education[edit]
Uppal was born in Birmingham, to Surjit Singh Uppal, a magistrate, and Balbir Kaur on 14th June 1967. His parents are Sikhs of East African descent. He attended Harborne Hill Comprehensive School and Matthew Boulton College. He studied Politics and Sociology at the University of Warwick. He married his wife Kashmir, a lawyer, on 17th November 1991 in Derby. They have three children together. He holds a season ticket for Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, and is a trustee of the second largest Gurudwara (Sikh Temple) in Wolverhampton.
