Nick Gibb
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Nicolas John "Nick" Gibb (born September 3, 1960) British politician. He is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. As of December 2005 Gibb holds the post of Shadow Minister of State for Schools in the Official Opposition (UK)
Nick Gibb was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire and was educated at the Maidstone Grammar School, Kent; the Roundhay School, Leeds; and the Thornes House School, Wakefield. He then attended the College of St Hild and St Bede at Durham University where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in law in 1981.
In 1982 he joined NatWest as a trainee accountant, before working on Kibbutz Merom Golam in 1983. From 1984 he was employed by KPMG as a chartered accountant until his election to parliament.
He worked as an election agent to Cecil Parkinson at the 1987 General Election, and became the secretary of the Bethnal Green and Stepney Conservative Association in 1988, becoming its chairman the following year. He contested Stoke-on-Trent Central at the 1992 General Election but was defeated into second place some 13,420 votes behind the sitting Labour MP Mark Fisher. Following the death of James Boyce on January 25, 1994, he was selected to contest the 1994 Rotherham by-election held on May 5, 1994. He finished in third place, 12,263 votes behind the winner Denis MacShane. He was elected to the House of Commons at the 1997 General Election for the newly created West Sussex seat of Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. Gibb won the seat with a majority of 7,321 and has remained the MP there since. He made his maiden speech on July 4, 1997 [1], in which he spoke of the visit of King George V in 1929 to Bognor Regis to take in the sea air, hence the suffix of Regis on the town's name. He recalled also the town of Felpham which was the home of poet William Blake.
He joined the frontbench of William Hague in 1997 when he was appointed as the spokesman on trade and industry, before joining the social security select committee later in the year. The following year, in 1998 he rejoined the frontbench as a spokesman on the treasury, moving back to trade and industry in 1999. He was briefly a spokesman on environment, transport and the regions following the 2001 General Election but resigned under the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith. Michael Howard brought him back to the frontbench following the 2005 General Election, since when he has been a spokesman on education. Following the election of David Cameron he was promoted within the education team to shadow Minister for Schools.
He is the brother of Robbie Gibb, a former spin doctor. He is a longstanding advocate of synthetic phonics as a method of teaching children to read, and enjoys long-distance running. He is also a supporter of the motor neurone disease cause.
[edit] Publications
- Forgotten Closed Shop: Case for Voluntary Membership of Student Unions by Nicholas Gibb and David Neil-Smith, 1985, Cleveland Press ISBN 0-948194-01-4
- Simplifying Taxes by Nick Gibb, 1987
- Duty to Repeal by Nick Gibb, 1989, Adam Smith Institute ISBN 1-870109-71-6
- Bucking the Market by Nick Gibb, 1990
- Maintaining Momentum by Nick Gibb, 1992
