Stephen Dorrell

Stephen James Dorrell (born 25 March 1952) is a British Liberal Democrat politician.

He was a member of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve for two years from 1971.

During the February 1974 general election, Dorrell acted as a personal assistant to Conservative minister Peter Walker.

Aged only 22, he contested the safe Labour seat of Kingston upon Hull East at the October 1974 general election, but was heavily defeated by the sitting MP (and later Deputy Prime Minister), John Prescott, who was returned with a majority of 25,793 votes.

He served as the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Loughborough between 1979 and 1997 and then for Charnwood from 1997 to 2015.

At the 1979 general election, the Conservatives were returned to office under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher.

Dorrell, then 27, was elected to the House of Commons for the marginal seat of Loughborough, ousting the veteran Labour MP John Cronin by 5,199 votes.

Following his election to parliament in 1979 he was a member of the Transport Select committee.

He was succeeded as the Baby of the House on 9 April 1981 when Bobby Sands was elected at the April 1981 Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election; however, Sands died on 5 May 1981 whilst on hunger strike in Long Kesh Prison.

Dorrell again became the Baby of the House until 20 August 1981, when Sands' successor Owen Carron was elected at the August 1981 Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election.

He nonetheless remained the youngest MP to take his seat in the House of Commons (Sinn Féin members do not take their seats) until the 1983 election, when Charles Kennedy succeeded him.

After the 1983 general election he was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to his old boss Peter Walker, who had now become the Secretary of State for Energy.

Dorrell was promoted to government after the 1987 General Election by the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as an Assistant Government Whip, and in 1988 became a Lord Commissioner to the Treasury 'full whip'.

In the 1990s he was a full member of John Major's Cabinet for almost three years, whilst serving as both Secretary of State for National Heritage and then Secretary of State for Health until the 1997 general election.

He was appointed as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health in 1990 under the premiership of John Major.

After the 1992 General Election he became the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

Dorrell was promoted to the Major Cabinet as the Secretary of State for National Heritage in 1994, and on appointment became a Member of the Privy Council.

He headhunted Jennie Page for the job of Millennium Dome Chief Executive according to The Observer.

He was transferred to become the Secretary of State for Health in 1995, and remained in position until the end of the Conservative administration at the 1997 general election.

When constituency boundaries were revised for the 1997 election, he moved with his key rural voters into the new Charnwood constituency.

He won the seat comfortably with a majority of 5,900, although Loughborough was lost to Andy Reed of Labour.

He launched a bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1997, but withdrew before the first ballot when it became clear his support amongst Conservative MPs was negligible.

Instead he threw his support behind Kenneth Clarke's bid.

Under William Hague he became shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment, but left the shadow cabinet in 1998, and was a backbencher for the remainder of his parliamentary career.

Dorrell most recently served for four years as Chairman of the House of Commons Health Select Committee from 2010 to 2014.

In June 2010, Dorrell was elected Chairman of the Health Select Committee.

In June 2011, following concerns over the unpopularity of Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms, Dorrell was tipped as a possible successor but stated that he wanted to continue as the committee chairman for the full parliament.

An alternate view was that David Cameron would not want any more "Tory retreads" from previous governments.

Dorrell acknowledged that resources would become tighter but changes driven by new medicines and new expectations were inevitable and integration of health care and social care would be both better and more efficient.

Interviewed in 2012, Dorrell stated that the 4% per year for four years efficiency targets, agreed before the 2010 election and described as "a huge challenge", were taking too long to achieve.

Whilst the bill had good points, e.g. involving clinicians and local authorities, more independence for public health etc. savings required a change in the way care is delivered not just changes in management structure.

The reforms were acting as a "disruption and distraction".

They were a secondary issue compared with the need to make efficiency savings of £20bn, he added.

Dorrell resigned in June 2014 and was succeeded by Sarah Wollaston.

He did not contest the 2015 general election and retired from the House of Commons.

He remained an MP until standing down from Parliament at the 2015 General Election.

On his election he was the Baby of the House of Commons, an informal title for the youngest member.

Returning to politics in 2019, he left the Conservatives and stood as a Change UK candidate at the 2019 European Parliament election.

After failing to be elected, he defected to the Liberal Democrats and was the unsuccessful Liberal Democrat candidate for Buckingham in the 2019 general election.

Dorrell was born in Worcester and educated at Uppingham School, Rutland, and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree.