Ivor Keith Caplin (born 8 November 1958) is a British Labour Party politician. He was the

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

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...

from

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

until

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 in ...

Early life

Caplin was born in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

into a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family and educated at

King Edward's School, Witley King Edward's Witley is an independent co-educational boarding and day school, founded in 1553 by King Edward VI and Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London and Westminster. The School is located in the village of Wormley (near Witley), Surrey, Englan ...

an independent fee paying minor public school and Brighton College of Technology. He had a career in marketing with the

Legal & General Legal & General Group plc, commonly known as Legal & General, is a British multinational financial services and asset management company headquartered in London, England. Its products and services include investment management, lifetime mortg ...

Assurance Society. In 1991, he was elected to

Borough Council A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

. In 1995, he led Labour's successful campaign to win control of the council and became its Leader until April 1997, when it merged with Brighton. He was elected to the new

Brighton and Hove Council Brighton and Hove City Council is the local authority of the city of Brighton and Hove. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It provides a full range of local government services ...

in 1996 and was Deputy Leader until resigning from the Council in March 1998.

Parliamentary career

Caplin was elected as Member of Parliament for Hove in 1997. In 1998 he became

Parliamentary Private Secretary A Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) is a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom who acts as an unpaid assistant to a minister or shadow minister. They are selected from backbench MPs as the 'eyes and ears' of the minister in the H ...

Margaret Beckett Dame Margaret Mary Beckett (''née'' Jackson; born 15 January 1943) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Derby South since 1983. A member of the Labour Party, she became Britain's first female Foreign S ...

. Following re-election in 2001 he became an Assistant Government

Whip A whip is a tool or weapon designed to strike humans or other animals to exert control through pain compliance or fear of pain. They can also be used without inflicting pain, for audiovisual cues, such as in equestrianism. They are generally e ...

and then

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 ...

and Minister for Veterans at the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

. Following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Caplin was the focus of anti-war protests mostly coordinated by "Hove Action for Peace". Large weekly protests were held outside his Constituency Surgery at Hove Town Hall over a few years. During his term as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence, he introduced the

Veteran's Badge The Veteran's Badge is a badge awarded by the Ministry of Defence to any person who served in the British Army, Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Royal Air Force, Volunteer or Regular Reserves of the British Armed Forces. History In 2004, the Vet ...

for those who had served in HM Armed Forces. He stood down from the House of Commons at the 2005 general election. In 2010

Sir Thomas Legg Sir Thomas Stuart Legg (born 13 August 1935) is a British former senior civil servant, who was Permanent Secretary of the Lord Chancellor's Department and Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, United Kingdom (1989–98). Biography Born in London in ...

conducted an independent audit of MPs expenses in which he determined that Caplin should repay £17,865 representing mortgage interest payments claimed on his second home, after Caplin failed to provide paperwork to establish his entitlement to claim the money. Caplin appealed, explaining that Legg's letters had gone to an old address and had not been forwarded. On 1 April 2011 his appeal was upheld and the amount of repayment reduced to £1,178.43 (which Caplin had overclaimed due to interest rate fluctuations of which he was unaware); Caplin accepted the finding and agreed to repay the money.

Post parliamentary career

Caplin now runs his own company Ivor Caplin Consultancy Ltd. which has a number of clients including Foresight Communications, a political lobbying firm whose clients include

EADS Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: '' ...

, EDS and

Sodexho Sodexo (formerly Sodexho Alliance) is a French food services and facilities management company headquartered in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux. It has 412,088 employees as of 2021, operates in 55 countries and serves 100 million custom ...

. He founded a new company, International Infrastructure Development Consultancy Ltd, which is specialising in advice and support for non EU Governments and the private sector overseas. With effect from August 2009, he was appointed as Chief Executive of Mayfair Capital Management a private group of UK companies based in London with executive responsibility for the construction, energy and property divisions of the group. He was the Chair of the

Jewish Labour Movement {{Infobox organization , name = Jewish Labour Movement , pronounce = , nickname = , named_after = , logo = JewishLabourMovementLogo.png , image_border = , size ...

for 2018–19.

References

External links

*
Caplin links to Brighton Development Company
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caplin, Ivor 1958 births Living people People educated at King Edward's School, Witley Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 Councillors in East Sussex Jewish British politicians Politicians from Brighton and Hove