Owen Paterson (politician)

Owen Paterson (2010)

Owen William Paterson (* 24. June 1956 in Whitchurch , Shropshire ) is a British politician of the Conservative Party . From May 2010 to September 2012 he served as Northern Ireland Minister ( Secretary of State for Northern Ireland ), then he took over the Ministry of the Environment, Food and Rural Areas.

biography

Entrepreneur, MP and shadow minister

After schooling, he studied history at the University of Cambridge and went after in the family business for leather goods , and in 1994, its executive director. In addition, he was temporarily president of COTANCE, the Confederation of European Gerber . His economic experiences also shaped his later attitudes towards strengthening the local economy, free enterprise and little interference in private life. In addition, he already took the view in his economic activities that taxation and bureaucracy should be dismantled for the benefit of people's possibilities.

In the general election in 1997 he was first a member of the lower house ( House of Commons elected) and believes in this since the constituency North Shropshire . In the following years of his membership in parliament he campaigned in his constituency for better health care, local elementary schools , improvement of local public transport and other local public institutions such as post offices and magistrate courts and was against the regionalization of the police. In the 2010 general election he was last re-elected with 51.37 percent of the vote.

After he was parliamentary director ( Whip ) of the Conservative parliamentary group in the lower house between 1999 and 2001 , he was the private parliamentary secretary of Iain Duncan Smith , the then chairman of the Conservative Party , between September 2001 and October 2003 .

In October 2005 he became "Agriculture Minister" in his party's shadow cabinet . As such, he became an expert on cattle tuberculosis and campaigned for dairy companies . In addition, he campaigned for ecological fishing ( Green Paper on Fisheries ) in Northern Europe . After this position he was shadow transport minister between November 2006 and July 2007 and in this function traveled to Europe and North America to inspect modern transport planning.

Most recently he was "Northern Ireland Minister" of the Conservative Shadow Cabinet from July 2007 to May 2010 and already visited Northern Ireland almost every week in this capacity for discussions with politicians and administrators, but also with schools, companies and community projects.

Northern Ireland Minister

After the Conservative Party's victory in the general election on May 6, 2010 , Prime Minister David Cameron appointed him Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in his government on May 11, 2010 .

At the beginning of his tenure, he announced possible reductions in business tax in Northern Ireland.

In August 2010, Paterson apologized to the relatives of the victims of three bomb attacks on July 31, 1972 in Claudy , Northern Ireland , in which nine people were killed. The Catholic priest and alleged assassin of the IRA , James Chesney , is believed to be one of the main organizers. But it is said to have been covered by the police, the British government such as the then Northern Ireland Minister William Whitelaw and the Catholic Church in order not to let the mood escalate further. Instead, Chesney was transferred to Malin Head in the Republic of Ireland . The Primate of the Irish Catholic Church, Cardinal Seán Brady , and Bishop Séamus Hegarty from Derry confirmed the results of the investigation and now stressed that Chesney should have been held responsible while he was still alive. Despite this apology, Paterson declined to criticize the then Northern Ireland Minister Whitelaw as well as to conduct an investigation, since many contemporary witnesses such as Whitelaw and Chesney had already passed away.

Minister for the Environment, Food and Rural Areas

Paterson was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from September 4, 2012 to July 14, 2014. His successor was Liz Truss .

Brexit

Owen Paterson is a staunch Brexit supporter, is a member of the Political Advisory Board of the Leave Means Leave Initiative and is in favor of a complete separation from the EU customs union. On March 13, 2019, Paterson was campaigning for a "no-deal Brexit" and described the British Parliament's "hard Brexit" rejection as treason against the electorate.

Private

Paterson was married to his wife Rose, daughter of the 4th Viscount of Ridley , from 1980 until her death in 2020 . He has two sons, a daughter and a granddaughter.

biography

• Homepage of Owen Paterson
• Homepage of the House of Commons
• Conservative Party homepage
• Homepage as a Member of Parliament ( They Work For You )
• BBC NEWS: Focus on the new NI secretary of state Owen Paterson (May 12, 2010)

Individual evidence

1. ^ THE GUARDIAN: Owen Paterson raises hopes of Northern Ireland business tax cut. Northern Ireland secretary says he would back inquiry into whether province should have lower rate of corporation tax (May 14, 2010)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Priest organized IRA terror
3. ↑ CONSERVATIVE HOME: Owen Paterson refuses to condemn Willie Whitelaw for deciding not to investigate Catholic priest who may have been IRA bomber (August 24, 2010)
4. ↑ Who We Are. In: Leave Means Leave. Retrieved March 14, 2019 (American English). 
5. ^ Owen Paterson MP: "We cannot deliver any of the economic benefits of Brexit without leaving the customs union". In: Leave Means Leave. July 4, 2018, Retrieved March 14, 2019 (American English). 
6. ↑ Exit from the EU: British Parliament rejects Brexit without an agreement . In: Spiegel Online . March 13, 2019 ( spiegel.de [accessed March 14, 2019]).
7. ^ Owen Paterson: Here's our plan for an orderly no-deal Brexit, and delivered on time | Owen Paterson . In: The Guardian . March 13, 2019, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed March 14, 2019]).
8. ↑ Leave Means Leave. Retrieved March 14, 2019 . 
9. ^ Rose Paterson, Aintree chairman and wife of Owen who invigorated the Grand National - obituary. In: The Telegraph. June 25, 2020, accessed on June 29, 2020 .