Mark Hoban

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Mark Gerard Hoban (born 31 March 1964) is a British politician and the Conservative Member of Parliament for Fareham.

Mark Hoban was born in Durham and was educated at the city's St Leonard's Roman Catholic Comprehensive School and the London School of Economics where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in economics in 1985.

He joined PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1985 as a financial analyst, becoming a chartered account manager in 1990, and was appointed as a senior manager in 1992 until his election to parliament.

He joined the Conservative Party in 1980, and in 1989 was elected as the treasurer of the Southampton Itchen Conservative Association and served until he was elected as the Association's vice chairman for two years in 1991.

He was the campaign manager for the local sitting Conservative MP Christopher Chope at both the 1987 and 1992 General Elections.

He contested the Tyneside seat of South Shields at the 1997 general election, finishing in second place some 22,153 votes behind the sitting Labour MP David Clark.

He was elected to the House of Commons at the 2001 general election for the Hampshire seat of Fareham following the retirement of the Conservative MP Peter Lloyd.

Hoban held the seat with a majority of 7,009 and has remained the MP there since. He made his maiden speech on 4 July 2001, in which he recalled one of his Fareham predecessors, Arthur Lee, who had donated the prime minister's country house Chequers to the nation in 1921 (see [1]).

In parliament he served as a member of the science and technology select committee for two years from 2001. He was made an Opposition Whip by Iain Duncan Smith in 2002, joining the frontbench under the leadership of Michael Howard in 2003 as a spokesman on education. Following the election of David Cameron as the part's leader in 2005, Hoban became a spokesman on the Treasury. He is the secretary of the all party group on Caritas.

Only he remained in the education team after the 2005 general election - their boss, Tim Collins, lost his Westmoreland and Lonsdale seat to the Liberal Democrats.

He was initially a supporter of the intellectual David Willetts in the 2005 leadership election, but following Willetts' withdrawal in favour of David Davis, Hoban's position is unknown.

He has been married to Fiona Jane Barrett since 1994 and they live in the constituency at Locks Heath. He enjoys travelling in France.

He has been an associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales since 1988.