David Ian Jones (born 22 March 1952) is a British politician and former solicitor serving as the Deputy Chairman of the European Research Group since March 2020 and as

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for Clwyd West since

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered ...

. A member of the Conservative Party, he has held several ministerial posts in Westminster; most recently as Minister of State at the

Department for Exiting the European Union The Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU; also known as the Department for Brexit or Brexit Department) was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for overseeing negotiations relating to Brexit, and establis ...

. Appointed on 17 July 2016, he was dismissed from his role on 12 June 2017. He is the first

Secretary of State for Wales The secretary of state for Wales ( cy, ysgrifennydd gwladol Cymru), also referred to as the Welsh secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Wales Office. The incumbent is a member ...

to have served as an Assembly Member, as well as the first Conservative officeholder to represent a Welsh constituency since

Nicholas Edwards Roger Nicholas Edwards, Baron Crickhowell, PC (25 February 1934 – 17 March 2018) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as an MP from 1970 until 1987 and as Secretary of State for Wales during the first two terms of the Tha ...

(1979–1987). In 2016, Jones joined the political advisory board of

Leave Means Leave Leave Means Leave was a pro-Brexit, Eurosceptic political pressure group organisation that campaigned and lobbied for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union following the 'Leave' result of the EU referendum on 23 June 2016. The campai ...

Early life

David Jones was born in

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appli ...

, London to Welsh parents, Elspeth () and Bryn Jones, and is a Welsh speaker. His father was a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...

officer who served in northwest India and later ran

pharmacies Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links hea ...

around the

Wrexham Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the county ...

area. He was educated at Ruabon Grammar School,

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

– where he was an active member of UCL Conservative Society – and Chester College of Law. He qualified as a

solicitor A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...

in 1976, and was senior partner of a practice (David Jones & Company) based at

Llandudno Llandudno (, ) is a seaside resort, town and community in Conwy County Borough, Wales, located on the Creuddyn peninsula, which protrudes into the Irish Sea. In the 2011 UK census, the community – which includes Gogarth, Penrhyn Bay, Crai ...

. As a young solicitor he had worked in

Ruthin Ruthin ( ; cy, Rhuthun) is a market town and community in Denbighshire, Wales, in the south of the Vale of Clwyd. It is Denbighshire's county town. The town, castle and St Peter's Square lie on a hill, skirted by villages such as Pwllglas an ...

alongside future Plaid Cymru Deputy Welsh First Minister

Ieuan Wyn Jones Ieuan Wyn Jones (born 22 May 1949) is a Welsh politician who was the Deputy First Minister in the Welsh Government from 2007 to 2011. He was the Member of the Senedd for the Ynys Môn constituency from 1999 to 2013, and he was also leader of ...

. He also worked in a Bangor practice led by former Labour MP for Conwy, Sir Elwyn Jones.

Political career

Welsh Assembly

In 1999 he contested the seat of

Conwy Conwy (, ), previously known in English as Conway, is a walled town, walled market town, community (Wales), community and the administrative centre of Conwy County Borough in North Wales. The walled town and castle stand on the west bank of the ...

in the inaugural Assembly Elections. In 2002, Jones unexpectedly became a member of the

Welsh Assembly The Senedd (; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English language, English and () in Welsh language, Welsh, is the Devolution in the United Kingdom, devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, it makes ...

for the North Wales electoral region, filling the seat vacated by the ex-

Welsh Office The Welsh Office ( cy, Swyddfa Gymreig) was a department in the Government of the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Wales. It was established in April 1965 to execute government policy in Wales, and was headed by the Secretary of State f ...

minister

Rod Richards Roderick Richards (12 March 1947 – 13 July 2019) was a British politician. He was a Conservative before joining UKIP in 2013. He was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Clwyd North West, in Wales, from 1992 to 1997, when he lost his ...

, who had resigned for health reasons. Jones made it clear from the outset that he would not seek re-election to the Assembly and stepped down at the 2003 elections.

Parliament

At the 2005 general election, Jones was elected as MP for Clwyd West, defeating the sitting Labour Party MP Gareth Thomas by a majority of 133 votes. This was his third candidacy for the Conservative Party in general elections; he had previously contested

at the 1997 election and finished second to Labour's Christine Russell in the City of Chester in at the 2001 general election. His

maiden speech A maiden speech is the first speech given by a newly elected or appointed member of a legislature or parliament. Traditions surrounding maiden speeches vary from country to country. In many Westminster system governments, there is a convention th ...

to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

was on 23 May 2005, when he focused on the needs of his rural constituency and on crime. He also expressed concern about

wind farm A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind tur ...

s planned for his constituency (the proposed Gwynt y Mor wind farm would be one of the biggest wind farms in the United Kingdom). He was a member of the

Welsh Affairs Select Committee The Welsh Affairs Select Committee (or simply the 'Welsh Affairs Committee') is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The remit of the committee is to examine the expenditure, administration and polic ...

from 2005 to 2010, and on 7 November 2006 was appointed Shadow Minister for Wales. He also takes a keen interest in law and order issues and was a member of the Conservative Homeland Security team. He was a member of the

Cornerstone Group The Cornerstone Group is a High Tory or traditional conservative political organisation within the British Conservative Party. The Group espouses traditional values as exemplified by its motto: Faith, Flag, and Family. It comprises Members of P ...

between 2005 and 2007, according to ''

WalesOnline Media Wales Ltd. is a publishing company based in Cardiff, Wales. As of 2009 it was owned by Reach plc (formerly known as the Trinity Mirror Group). It was previously known as the Western Mail & Echo Ltd. History The ''Western Mail'' was fo ...

''. On 6 May 2010, Jones was re-elected as Member of Parliament for Clwyd West with a substantially increased majority of 6,419. He was appointed

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (or just Parliamentary Secretary, particularly in departments not led by a Secretary of State) is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the UK government, immediately junior to a Minister o ...

at the

Wales Office , agency_type = Ministerial department , type = Department , logo = Wales Office logo.png , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = Gwydyr House, Whitehall (geograph 5590 ...

on 13 May 2010. He was appointed

on 4 September 2012, following

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

's first Cabinet reshuffle, and removed from office in another reshuffle on 14 July 2014. After

Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cab ...

's appointment as Prime Minister, he was appointed as a Minister of State at the

. He was subsequently dismissed from this role on 12 June 2017. A fluent

Welsh language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argentina). Historically, it has ...

speaker, Jones also maintains an active blog. He has been known to give up his activity on

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...

for

Lent Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Lu ...

. His constituency office is based in

Colwyn Bay Colwyn Bay ( cy, Bae Colwyn) is a town, community and seaside resort in Conwy County Borough on the north coast of Wales overlooking the Irish Sea. It lies within the historic county of Denbighshire. Eight neighbouring communities are incorpo ...

. In February 2013, ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' reported that as Welsh Secretary Jones took a

chauffeur A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine. Originally, such drivers were often personal employees of the vehicle owner, but this has changed to special ...

-driven

Jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...

on a journey of about 100 metres. A spokesman for the Welsh Office said: "The Secretary of State for Wales did travel by car to Cabinet today as he was reading Cabinet papers and briefing until his arrival at Downing Street."

Views on same-sex marriage

During an interview on

ITV Wales ITV Cymru Wales, previously known as Harlech Television and HTV Wales, is the ITV franchise for Wales. The new separate licence began on 1 January 2014, replacing the long-serving dual franchise region serving Wales and the West of England. L ...

''Face to Face'' programme in February 2013, discussing a Parliamentary vote on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill on 5 February, Jones said: "I was one of two cabinet ministers who did vote against it and it was for various reasons. Certainly in constituency terms, I felt that overwhelmingly the constituents of Clwyd West were opposed to the change. But also I regard marriage as an institution that has developed over many centuries, essentially for the provision of a warm and safe environment for the upbringing of children, which is clearly something that two same-sex partners can't do. Which is not to say that I'm in any sense opposed to stable and committed same-sex partnerships". The gay rights organisation Stonewall issued a statement expressing disappointment at his comments. In a statement after the interview, Jones said: "I made the point of stressing that I was fully supportive of committed same-sex relationships. I simply sought to point out that, since same-sex partners could not biologically procreate children, the institution of marriage was one that, in my opinion, should be reserved to opposite-sex partners."

Blog

In 2014, Jones was accused by fellow MP

Guto Bebb Guto ap Owain Bebb (born 9 October 1968) is a Welsh politician and former business consultant who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Aberconwy from 2010 to 2019, having previously lost elections to the Welsh Assembly and the House of Comm ...

of being co-author of the blog "Thoughts of Oscar". Jones denied having anything to do with the blog, for which local newsagent Nigel Roberts claimed full responsibility. Richie Windmill, the leader of the "Victims of Oscar" action group, was arrested in October 2015, along with his wife, on suspicion of

harassment Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral r ...

, but were released without charge. They claimed the arrest was an act of revenge for exposing David Jones as a major contributor to the blog and accused him of using his masonic connections to arrange their arrests.

Secretary of State for Wales and Minister for Brexit

On 4 September 2012, Jones was promoted to

, and he was in consequence appointed to the

Privy Council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the m ...

on 10 September. Jones stated his top priorities would be to promote economic growth and deliver major infrastructure projects including a new nuclear power station at the Wylfa site on Anglesey, upgrades to rail lines in

North Wales , area_land_km2 = 6,172 , postal_code_type = Postcode , postal_code = LL, CH, SY , image_map1 = Wales North Wales locator map.svg , map_caption1 = Six principal areas of Wales commonl ...

and improvements to the

M4 motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is a motorway in the United Kingdom running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh element was largely ...

and the A55, and exploiting the full economic potential of the

Holyhead Holyhead (,; cy, Caergybi , " Cybi's fort") is the largest town and a community in the county of Isle of Anglesey, Wales, with a population of 13,659 at the 2011 census. Holyhead is on Holy Island, bounded by the Irish Sea to the north, and ...

and

Milford Haven Waterway Milford Haven Waterway (''Welsh: Dyfrffordd Aberdaugleddau'') is a natural harbour in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is a ria or drowned valley which was flooded at the end of the last ice age. The Daugleddau estuary winds west to the sea. As on ...

ports. Issues with the Welsh Government included a Supreme Court challenge by Her Majesty's Government to legislation passed in the Welsh Assembly about local government byelaws and the Welsh government's objection to a Wales Office consultation on changing the boundaries of assembly constituencies. Jones described the Welsh Government's planning guideline Tan 8 as "an atrocity". Following Jones leading the Welsh arm of the Vote Leave campaign for the EU referendum, he was appointed as a government Brexit minister in July 2016 under

. In June 2017, after a reshuffle by her, Jones lost his position.

Personal life

Jones has been married to Sara Tudor, a former

nurse Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health ...

, since 1982. The couple have two sons. Jones is a supporter of

Liverpool F.C. Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and h ...

Jones declared membership of the

Freemasons Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

, although he wrote in 2009 he had not been an active member for many years.

References

Bibliography

* https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-29141800 * http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1983/2 * http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/llandudno-couple-suing-north-wales-11361115

External links

David Jones MP official constituency websiteDavid Jones's blogDavid Jones MP
Conservative Party profile
Clwyd West Conservatives
* , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, David 1952 births Alumni of University College London Conservative Party (UK) MPs for Welsh constituencies Conservative Party members of the Senedd Living people Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom People educated at Ruabon Grammar School UK MPs 2005–2010 UK MPs 2010–2015 UK MPs 2015–2017 UK MPs 2017–2019 UK MPs 2019–present Wales AMs 1999–2003 Welsh bloggers Welsh solicitors Welsh-speaking politicians British Eurosceptics