Political Career
Gillan served as the Chairman of the Bow Group in 1987–1988 and unsuccessfully contested the Greater Manchester Central seat in the 1989 European Parliament election. She was elected to the House of Commons in the 1992 general election for the Buckinghamshire seat of Chesham and Amersham. She won the seat with a majority of 22,220 and has remained the MP there since. She made her maiden speech on 25 June 1992.
Gillan was active in her early years in Parliament, serving on the Select Committees for Science and Technology (1992–1995) and for Procedure (1994–1995). She was also the Secretary to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Space and a Board Member of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology in 1995. In 1994 she was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal Viscount Cranborne.
In July 1995 Cheryl Gillan joined the government as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Employment. In this role she expanded the specialist schools programme to include arts and sports colleges, something she considers to be one of her proudest achievements in politics. After the 1997 general election—with the Conservatives now in Opposition—she became a spokesman for Trade and Industry in June 1997 and then, from June 1998, shadow minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and International Development. From September 2001 until June 2003 she served in the whip's office. In December 2003 she became Shadow Minister for Home, Constitutional and Legal Affairs.
Gillan represented the British Islands and the Mediterranean on the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) from 2000 until 2003 and was later elected treasurer of the CPA from 2003 until 2006.
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