Nick Herbert - Political Career

Political Career

He unsuccessfully contested the Northumberland seat of Berwick-upon-Tweed at the 1997 general election where he finished in third place some 8,951 votes behind the veteran Liberal Democrat MP Alan Beith.

In 2001 he co-founded the Reform think tank which focuses on reforming public services via private sector involvement and de-regulation.

His selection to contest the West Sussex seat of Arundel and South Downs at the 2005 general election did not come about without incident. The sitting Conservative MP, Howard Flight, had been forced to resign as a vice chairman of the party and had the whip removed by Michael Howard in 2005 after he had told a Conservative Way Forward meeting that the Conservatives would have to make more cuts than they were promising. With no whip, he was not considered as an approved candidate and, despite protest and the local association refusing to select a new candidate, he finally resigned just a month before the election. Herbert was selected and elected, holding the seat with a slightly reduced majority of 11,309. He made his maiden speech on 6 June 2005.

On his election, he became the first out gay Conservative MP to be open about his homosexuality at the time he was initially elected (he is not the first out gay Conservative MP; that distinction goes to Alan Duncan, who voluntarily came out in 2002 and Michael Brown, who was 'outed' in 1994). Herbert lives in Arundel with his civil partner Jason Eades.