Owen Paterson was first elected as the Conservative MP for North Shropshire in 1997 being reelected in 2019 with a majority of 22,949.
He resigned from the Commons in November 2021, following a lobbying controversy in which he faced a 30 day suspension from the Commons.
The North Shropshire constituency spreads across the top third of the county. It is found to the west of the Stoke conurbation, south of Cheshire and north of Shrewsbury. A rural area, the seat includes the five small towns of Whitchurch, Market Drayton, Wem, Ellesmere, and Oswestry. This is a safe Conservative seat in which the party normally typically polls sixty percent of the vote in its better years and fifty percent of the vote in its poorer years. Some three fifths of voters here backed Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum.
Paterson served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland between 2010 and 2012, and as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs between 2012 and 2014.
Paterson is positioned on the right of the Conservative Party. He supported Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and was later involved in the ‘Leave means Leave’ pressure group.
He previously opposed the Same Sex Marriage bill. He backed Boris Johnson in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election.
Paterson is though one of the few Conservative MPs who has expressed support for Proportional Representation. He is Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Electoral Reform.
Born in 1956 in Shropshire, Paterson was educated at Radley College, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and the National Leathersellers College in Northampton. Paterson joined the British Leather Company in 1979, becoming Sales Director in 1983 and Managing Director in 1993.
He speaks French and German fluently and travelled all over Europe, Asia and North America selling the company’s products. Between 1996 and 1898 he was President of COTANCE, the European Tanners’ Confederation.
Owen Paterson is Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Spinal Cord Injury; and he is Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Suicide and Self Harm Prevention.
According to the Register of Members Interest, he is a consultant to Randox Laboratories Ltd, a clinical diagnostics company.
He is Chairman and Director of The Rose Paterson Trust Limited, named after his late wife who took her own life in 2020. The charity supports physical and mental health projects, suicide prevention and suicide bereavement.
Paterson lists his interests as horse racing and eventing, alongside having an interest in trees.
Email: Patersono@parliament.uk
Personal Website: http://www.owenpaterson.org/
Twitter: @Owen_PatersonMP
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Owen4NorthShropshire
