Richard Graham (politician)

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Richard Graham
CMG MP

Member of Parliament
for Gloucester
Incumbent
Assumed office
6 May 2010
Preceded by Parmjit Dhanda
Majority 10,277 (19.1%)
Personal details
Born 4 April 1958 (age 65)
Nationality British
Political party Conservative
Spouse Anthea Graham
Children 3
Alma mater Christ Church, Oxford
Website Official Website
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham CMG (born 4 April 1958)[1] is a British
Conservative Party politician, who was first elected at the 2010 general election
as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gloucester.[2]

Early life and career

The grandson of the cricketer and British Army officer Ogilvie Graham,[3] Graham
was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford where he was an exhibitioner in
Modern History.[4] Whilst at Oxford University, he was a Cadet with the Oxford
University Air Squadron. Graham has played international squash and still plays
cricket for Gloucester City Winget Cricket Club and the Gloucestershire Over 50s.
[5]

Graham was previously an airline manager, a diplomat and a pensions manager. He

started with John Swire and Sons and became general manager of Cathay Pacific
Airways in France at 24 and in the Philippines at 26, concurrently Vice-chairman of
the board of Airline Representatives. He joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
in 1986, and was Second, later First, Secretary, in the British High Commission
Nairobi and then British Trade Commissioner China, First Secretary British Embassy
Beijing and HM Consul Macao (1989–1992). Graham joined Barings Bank as its Chief
Representative China in 1993, and became a director of Baring Asset Management in
1996.[6]

He was previously a Director of the charitable company Care for Children, which
organises and trains foster parents for Chinese orphans.[7]

Graham was elected as a Cotswold district councillor in 2003, becoming Chairman of

the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in 2006.[8] He unsuccessfully contested the
Conservative Party Stroud Parliamentary nomination and the South West of England in
the 2004 European elections.

International experience
Graham has lived and worked in ten countries and speaks eight languages:
Indonesian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, French, Malay, Swahili and English.[9]

Graham was the first MP to speak Indonesian in the Chamber,[10] when he spoke
during PMQs on 10 October 2018 on the natural disaster at Palu in Indonesia's
Sulawesi islands. "Teman yang membantu saat dibutuhkan adalah teman sebenarnya": a
friend in need is a friend indeed."[11]

Graham was described by the former Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow on
numerous occasions as a "noted Sinologist."[12][13]

Parliamentary career
First parliament (2010–15)
In the run up to the 2010 general election, Graham was criticised by the incumbent
Gloucester Labour MP Parmjit Dhanda and Stroud MP David Drew for using members and
supporters of the foxhound pack Heythrop Hunt[14] to campaign and leaflet on his
behalf.[15]

Following his election to the House of Commons in 2010, Graham was a member of the
Select Committee for Work and Pensions May–November 2010, and since July 2015.[16]
He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Rt Hon Lord Howell from November
2010 to September 2012. He was also Parliamentary Private Secretary to Rt Hon Hugo
Swire, Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 2014. In
November 2012, Graham was appointed Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to Indonesia.[17]
In January 2016 he was also appointed the Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to
Malaysia, the Philippines, and the ASEAN Economic Community.[18] He is the longest
serving PMs trade envoy in the Commons.

In June 2010, his first debate in Parliament regarding apprenticeships and their
importance to Gloucester was cancelled after both he and the apprenticeship
minister arrived late. Graham later blamed a 'Printer Error'.[19] Graham also
apologised to the Serjeant at Arms in 2010 after he shared a photo taken of him in
the House of Commons Chamber when it was not sitting with the Gloucester Citizen
which also accompanied an article in that newspaper on his maiden speech.[20]
Photography is only permitted by the Speaker in exceptional circumstances.[21]

In January 2013, Graham attracted criticism after suggesting to Gloucester Citizen

that young women who wear high heels and short skirts put themselves at greater
risk of rape. He said, "If you are blind drunk and wearing those clothes how able
are you to get away?"[22] Graham denied he was "victim blaming", saying that his
comments were about "risk management".[23]

On 5th Feb 2013 Graham was one of the 395 MP's that voted in favour of same-sex
marriage and has consistently voted in support of it since then. [24]

Graham has made apprenticeships a particular cause and has employed his own office
apprentice every year since 2011. Graham has organised 14 jobs fairs in
Gloucestershire since 2010.[25]

Graham successfully campaigned for stronger dangerous driving sentencing laws in

2013 for those driving uninsured and under the influence of alcohol.[26] In July
2015, he was banned from driving for six months at Stroud Magistrates Court after
he was caught driving at 90 mph in a 70 mph speed limit on the A417 near
Cirencester, in the Cotswolds on 14 December 2014.[27] He already had nine points
on his licence at the time so faced automatic disqualification.[28] He was fined
£525 with £85 costs and a £53 victim surcharge. Consequently, he also had a road
safety award withdrawn which he received from the charity Brake in January 2015.
[27]

In June 2013, he was advised by the Information Commissioner's Office that he was
in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the EU directive concerning Privacy
and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 after sending
political campaign emails to people who had contacted him on parliamentary business
without first obtaining their permission.[29]

In November 2014, a UK China Leadership Forum in China, led by Peter Mandelson and
Ken Clarke, was cancelled at the last minute in sympathy with Graham after he was
denied a visa to China following a Westminster debate on the pro-democracy protests
in Hong Kong where he voiced his support for the protesters' human rights demands.
[30]

Second parliament (2015–17)

In April 2015, Graham was ordered by a judge to remove tweets that discussed a
murder trial in Gloucester after the defendant's barrister accused him of "a clear
attempt to win votes by ingratiating himself with his electors."[31] The defendant
was later found guilty of murder. Graham was re-elected with an increased majority
of 7,241 votes at the 2015 general election. He apologised for parking his official
campaign van in the County Council building car park disabled parking bay for 30
minutes for a memorial ceremony for police after a "37 hour day" following the
election.[32]

In May 2015, Graham was mocked on Twitter after taking a joke by David Schneider
about YouGov Polls at face value.[33]

In November 2015, Graham was accused of quoting Joseph Goebbels in defending a new
surveillance bill with the words "if you've nothing to hide you have nothing to
fear". The Independent pointed out that former Conservative Foreign Secretary
William Hague had also used the same phrase in 2013 whilst Graham dismissed the
argument as "clearly absurd" as Goebbels would have spoken in German.[34]

In 2016, Graham was a member of the joint Select Committee which investigated the
British Home Stores Pension Fund. He asked Sir Philip Green, who had responded
angrily to previous questions about corporate governance, if he regarded the
offshore company structure as appropriate for a modern UK company. Green did not
answer directly, but said the structuring could have been more aggressive and
others were jealous of his success.[35] Graham addressed Philip Green on what he
would do for pensioners and the latter committed to funding the deficit.[36]

In January 2016, Graham launched the UKTI Education is GREAT campaign to increase
engagement with British education in Malaysia.[37]

Graham campaigned for a "Remain" vote during the 2016 EU membership referendum[38]
but was later involved in informal talks regarding future Free Trade Agreements as
the Prime Minister's Trade Envoy to the Philippines.[39]

In May 2017, during a BBC interview regarding the benefits system, Victoria
Derbyshire discussed Personal Independent Payments (PIPs) for disabled people with
Graham and asked why some people with permanent degenerative conditions were being
reassessed for their social security payment. Graham said: "Some conditions do
degenerate, some stabilise, occasionally some do get better. It's a mixed
situation" but did not clarify his remarks leading to criticism.[by whom?][40]

Third parliament (2017–19)

Graham was re-elected with an increased share of the vote with 50.3%, but a reduced
majority of 5,520 votes at the 2017 general election.

In March 2018, Graham voted through in favour of changes for any parent of children
in Year 3 and above earning more than £7,400 to be ineligible to claim the free
school meals.[41]

In August 2018, Graham wrote in an online newsletter[42] to his constituents that

in order to increase recycling rates there would need to be an "education programme
for immigrants not used to urban recycling", which drew criticism from opposition
politicians,[43] but he defended his comments as "entirely factual."[44]

During a debate on Universal Credit on 15 October 2018 in the House of Commons,

Graham raised concerns about the lack of data gathered about local food bank users.
He said, "One of the difficulties with trying to correlate the people on universal
credit with those who go to food banks is that there is no precise data to compare
the two. I know anecdotally the number of foreigners claiming food bank vouchers is
quite high". Opposition politicians criticised this citing national Trussell Trust
data.[45]

In December 2018 during a debate on Brexit and free movement, Graham mentioned a
case of a pregnant "Young Gloucester girl who was badly beaten by her European
boyfriend". Graham said that the girl was "terrified that when he comes out of
prison he will return to haunt her and her family, because this country cannot
deport European nationals unless they have served a sentence of longer than two
years." One critic commented: "The situation Richard Graham mentioned is an
obviously distressing case of domestic violence, and Richard Graham should know
better than to exploit it by jumping on an anti-immigrant bandwagon to score
political points." Graham later apologised to the House for his comments which he
said were "clumsy".[46]

Graham chairs the All Party Parliamentary Groups for Indonesia, China, and Marine
Energy and Tidal Lagoons. He is also a member of the Exiting the European Union
Select Committee.[citation needed]

During the Conservatives' 2019 leadership campaign, he backed Jeremy Hunt.[47]

Fourth parliament (2019–present)

Graham was re-elected with an increased share of the vote with 54.2%, the highest
vote share in the constituency since 1935, and an almost doubled majority of
10,277.

Graham resigned as Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to Malaysia, the Philippines, and
the ASEAN Economic Community on 7 July 2022, as part of the July 2022 United
Kingdom government crisis.[48]

He was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the
2023 New Year Honours for services to trade and investment in South-East Asia.[49]

Campaigns and projects

Gloucester History Festival
In 2010, Graham created the first Gloucester History Festival and chairs the
Gloucester History Committee.[50] In 2018, it attracted 23,000 visitors to the
city. He is also a trustee of the Gloucestershire Community Foundation,[51] Patron
of the Discover de Crypt project [52] and an Hon. Member of the Showmen's Guild.

Transport
In October 2018, the Gloucester Transport Hub was opened after a £60m deal managed
by Stanhope was agreed with Gloucester City Council to revamp the King's Square
area.[53] Graham also proposed a redevelopment on the railway station, with an
additional new car park and access to the station from Great Western road, an
improved underpass from Bruton Way to Great Western Road, and a new forecourt and
exit onto Metz Way from the existing carpark, which was funded by Government after
a successful bid. As of June 2019, the first stage of work has been completed with
a new carpark, electric car charging points and rear entrance installed.[54]

Education
In February 2019, Graham along with Chancellor Philip Hammond and Alex Chalk MP
formally opened the £5million School of Business and Technology at the University
of Gloucestershire. The Vice Chancellor Stephen Marston spoke of the “massive
contribution to Gloucester and its wellbeing”,[55] whilst the Chancellor added that
the investment brings “together academic and business expertise and ensure the
students here today develop the skills they need to become the business leaders of
the future.” [56]

Graham along with Nic Dakin co-authored a letter to Chancellor of the Exchequer
Philip Hammond seeking more funding for Further Education, which gained the support
of 165 MPs from four parties represented in Parliament. He handed the letter over
to the Chancellor and reiterated the main point that ‘while government policy has
protected the incomes of schools and universities, colleges have been dealt an
average funding cut of 30% over the last ten years. The Chancellor’s departmental
spending review is a chance to announce an above inflation increase which would
boost skills, productivity and social mobility.’ [57]

Stalking
With Alex Chalk, Graham has worked on extending the maximum penalty for stalking.
They introduced a Private Member's Bill in 2016 calling for the limit to be
doubled. Then justice minister Sam Gyimah thanked Graham for his “considerable
efforts in highlighting this issue.”[58] and the law was changed in January 2017
through the Policing and Crime Bill.

Laura Richards, the founder and director of Paladin, National Stalking Advocacy
Service released this statement in support of the work of Graham. “This law change
will allow Judges greater flexibility when sentencing stalkers and provide some
respite for victims of stalking. This is about justice, ensuring better protection
for victims as well as changing lives and saving lives. We are grateful to Alex
Chalk MP and Richard Graham MP, as well as Baroness Jan Royall for tabling the
amendment in the House of Lords.” [59]

Commonwealth servicemen
In March 2019, a cross party group of MPs led by Richard Graham and Madeleine Moon
wrote to Home Secretary Sajid Javid calling for the abolition of visa fees for
commonwealth servicemen and women in the British Armed Forces. Graham said “These
men and women are willing to put their life on the line for our country and the
current situation doesn’t reflect our and the nation’s respect for them. The
changes we propose are in line with the Armed Forces Covenant and would make a real
difference to those who’ve shown such commitment to the UK.” [60] On 5 June 2019
Sajid Javid announced the rule change which would allow soldiers from Commonwealth
countries to bring families to Britain.[61]

Gambling
Graham has also been campaigning for a gambling levy and greater protection for
online gambling.[62] On 24 April 2019, he presented a ten-minute rule bill which
would require a review of a mandatory levy, for the first time, calling for
“immediate and deep investment in research to analyse the extent of gambling
addiction, including looking at all aspects of marketing and advertising by
gambling companies.” [63]

Positions of trust
Since 2017, Graham has pushed for the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to extend the
legislation on positions of trust (for whom it is forbidden to have sexual
relations with anyone under 18) to include those who are coaching or training
under-18-year-olds, particularly driving instructors or sports coaches.[64]