Richard Foord is the Liberal Democrat MP for Honiton and Sidmouth, having first been elected to parliament for the predecessor constituency of Tiverton and Honiton in a by-election on 23 June 2022.

In the 2024 general election, Foord won 23,007 votes, representing 45.4% of the vote. The Conservative candidate, Simon Jupp, received 16,307 votes (32.2%), while the Reform UK candidate, Paul Quickenden, secured 6,289 votes (12.4%). Foord was duly elected with a majority of 6,700 votes.

The Honiton and Sidmouth constituency was newly created for the 2024 election, drawing territory primarily from the abolished Tiverton and Honiton and East Devon seats. It covers towns including Honiton, Sidmouth, Axminster, Seaton, Ottery St Mary, and Cullompton in East Devon.

Political Career

Foord is a member of the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee (since October 2024) – the committee responsible for examining the expenditure, administration and policy of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and other associated bodies.

Foord was appointed as a member of the United Kingdom delegation to the Nato parliamentary assembly (Nato PA) by the prime minister in November 2024. The delegation serves as a consultative link between the UK parliament and Nato. The assembly brings together legislators from all 32 member states to debate and provide oversight on security and defence policy. The party distribution of the delegation is intended to reflect the composition of the House of Commons.

Foord previously served as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for defence from July 2022 to September 2024.

Foord was first elected to parliament at the Tiverton and Honiton by-election on 23 June 2022. Foord won the seat with a majority of 6,144, overturning a Conservative majority of over 24,000 from the 2019 general election, representing one of the largest swings recorded in a UK parliamentary by-election.

The by-election was triggered by the resignation of Conservative MP Neil Parish, who admitted watching pornography in the House of Commons chamber in a “moment of madness”.

Speaking to BBC South West, Parish said: “The situation was that funnily enough, it was tractors I was looking at.

“I did get into another website that had a very similar name and I watched it for a bit, which I shouldn’t have done. But my crime – biggest crime – is that on another occasion I went in a second time.”

During his tenure as an MP, Foord has introduced several private members’ bills. These include:

• The UK–USA Trade Agreements (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Bill (2024-26), which sought to require parliamentary approval for any trade deal with the United States, introduced in April 2025.
• The Military Action Bill (2024-26), which would require parliamentary approval for deploying UK armed forces into conflict, introduced in October 2024.
• The Water Quality Monitoring Bill (2023-24), introduced in December 2023, which aimed to give the Environment Agency greater powers over monitoring water quality.
• The Rural Crime (Strategy) Bill (2022-23), which would require the government to establish a strategy for tackling rural crime, introduced in July 2023.
• The National Parks (Camping) Bill (2022-23), introduced in January 2023, which sought to establish a right to camp in national parks.

Foord is listed as a member of the all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) for groups including digital communities, modern conflict and the South West.

Foord delivered his maiden speech on 6 July 2022 during a debate on strategy for international development. In it, he said: “Every time I walk up the staircase to my office here, I find myself eyeballed by a bust of the former foreign secretary and former prime minister, Lord Palmerston. Palmerston was the MP for Tiverton for 30 years”.

digital added: “He started out a Conservative but later became a Liberal. I honestly think that is what we are hearing across the country: a groundswell of opinion from people who feel taken for granted.

“Just yesterday, we saw two senior members of the cabinet [Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak] quit, citing a lack of integrity, and I think that it is time for those remaining members of the cabinet to heed the message from voters in Tiverton and Honiton at our by-election last month and show the prime minister [Boris Johnson] the door.”

Foord previously stood unsuccessfully as the Liberal Democrat candidate for North Somerset in the 2017 general election, finishing third to Conservative incumbent Liam Fox on 5,982 votes (9.6%)

Political views

Foord was endorsed by local groups of the cross-party organisation Compass during the 2024 general election. Compass is a thinktank and campaign group. As part of its “Win as One” campaign in the 2024 election, local Compass groups backed a slate of progressive candidates who had pledged their support for electoral reform. The central aim of the initiative was to elect a “caucus” of MPs who would champion the cause of replacing the first past the post (FPTP) electoral system.

Electoral reform

Fair elections APPG: Foord is listed as a member of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for fair elections – a cross-party group of MPs and peers that campaigns for electoral reform. The group’s stated aims include replacing the first past the post (FPTP) voting system with a form of proportional representation, eliminating “dark money” and “undemocratic influence” from politics, and countering disinformation.

Electoral reform amendment: In May 2026, Foord signed an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill, calling on the government to establish a “national commission on electoral reform”. Tabled by Alex Sobel as chair of the fair elections APPG, the amendment aimed to force a rethink of the first past the post voting system.

At the time, Sobel described FPTP as “one of the biggest examples of a broken status quo in UK politics.” He invited colleagues to join this “common sense call to take a fresh look at how parliament is elected in modern Britain.”

Proportional representation bill: In December 2024, Foord voted in favour of the Elections (Proportional Representation) Bill – introduced by Liberal Democrat frontbencher Sarah Olney under the 10-minute rule procedure. The bill sought to “introduce a system of proportional representation for parliamentary elections and for local government elections in England”.

A total of 138 MPs supported the bill – with 136 opposed. Notably, 59 Labour MPs backed Olney’s bill.

Introducing the bill, Olney told the House: “First past the post is a broken and unfair system. This summer, the Labour party won a landslide election victory, securing 63% of seats in the House of Commons in return for just 34% of the vote.

“The system leaves millions of voices unheard and creates a divisive, adversarial political climate where collaboration is discouraged and accountability is often sidestepped.”

Assisted dying

Richard Foord voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, better known as the assisted dying bill, at both second reading (November 2024) and third reading (June 2025).

Setting out his position in a column for the Midweek Herald, published ahead of the bill’s second reading, Foord wrote: “This is probably the most difficult vote that I have had to cast in the years that I have been in parliament so far…

“On top of what I read, I still feel the influence of watching my own mother’s final days in 2020, during which she kept repeating the words ‘hurry up’. Despite morphine, I knew that she was suffering, and I felt unable to help.”

He added: “One thing I am certain of is that we must use the debate over this bill as an opportunity to press the government on better support for palliative care.”

Palestine

Ceasefire vote (November 2023): Foord voted for a Scottish National Party (SNP) amendment to the king’s speech in the House of Commons calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in the Israel-Hamas war. Labour had tabled a rival motion, making a more moderate appeal for a “humanitarian pause” in the conflict.

Before Politics

Born Richard John Foord on 13 February 1978 in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, he attended Backwell School.

Foord holds a degree in history from Royal Holloway, University of London. He went on to study at Cranfield University and the Open University.

Foord served in the British Army for 10 years after graduating from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, commissioning into the Adjutant General’s Corps in 2001. He reached the rank of Major and served in the Balkans and Iraq. He received three campaign medals.

After leaving the army in 2010, he worked at the University of Exeter, latterly as acting head of global partnerships. He then moved to the University of Oxford as International Collaboration and Export Control Manager before being elected to Parliament.

Personal Life

Foord is married to Kate Foord. They live in Uffculme, Devon, with their three children.

Trivia

Foord is a qualified mountain leader and has run the London Marathon, raising money for the Royal British Legion.