Quentin Davies (1944-2005)

JOHN Quentin Davies, Baron Davies of Stamford, was elected as Grantham and Stamford’s Conservative MP from 1997-2007 then defected to the Labour Party. He had represented Stamford and Spalding MP since 1987, but became Grantham candidate with boundary changes.

He became a Labour minister for three years but decided not to stand for re-election at the May 2010 general election and became a life peer in the Dissolution Honours List

Born in Oxford, Davies was the son of a doctor who had been in the RAF during the Second World War, stationed for a time at RAF Spitalgate.

He was educated at the local preparatory Dragon School, before attending the Quaker Leighton Park School, Reading. He attended Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a first class Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1966 and was a Frank Knox Fellow at Harvard University.

He joined the diplomatic service eventually becoming second secretary at the Moscow Embassy before returning as a First Secretary at the Foreign Office.

He left the diplomatic service in 1974 when he joined Morgan Grenfell.

He was unsuccessful in the 1977 Birmingham Ladywood by-election for the Conservatives but was elected 10 years later for the safe Tory Stamford and Spalding seat with a 13,991 vote majority.

He was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Education and Science Minister Angela Rumbold in 1988, and remained her PPS in her incarnation as Home Office Minister. After the 1992 General Election he was a member of the Treasury Committee then promoted to the opposition front bench by William Hague in 1998 as a spokesman on social security, followed by Treasury matters, and defence.

After the 2001 General Election he joined Iain Duncan Smith’s Shadow Cabinet. He became the Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary until the election of Michael Howard in 2003, when he became a member of the International Development Committee, a role he continued in until joining Labour.

He was awarded the ‘Parliamentarian of the Year Award’ by The Guardian in 1996, the same year he was named ‘Backbencher of the Year’ by BBC Radio 4.

In 1991 he was fined for two charges of animal cruelty having been legally responsible for his farm employees’ failure to feed the sheep on his estate. Following his conviction he was greeted by

Labour MPs with calls of ‘Baaa!’

He was the chairman of the Conservative Group for Europe from March 2006 until his defection to Labour, the night before Gordon Brown became Prime Minister.

In a letter to the Conservative leader David Cameron he wrote, “Under your leadership the Conservative Party appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything. A sense of mission has been replaced by a PR agenda.”

Two years prior to his defection, Davies had described Gordon Brown as “extraordinarily incompetent”, “imprudent” and “extraordinarily naïve”.

He was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Equipment and Support at the Ministry of Defence.

In 2009, during the row over MPs’ expenses, the Sunday Mirror alleged Davies claimed £10,000 for repairs to window frames at his “second home”, Frampton Hall (built in 1725) near Boston, while staying at his “main home”, a flat in Westminster.  In 2008, his Member’s Claim Form for Additional Costs Allowance was filled out with a figure of £20,700 relating to maintenance to a Bell Tower.

The form was later amended to read £5,376.

He married Chantal Tamplin (daughter of Lt.Col Richard Tamplin) in 1983 at St Andrew’s church, Irnham. She was appointed his Parliamentary Assistant.