Nicholas John Hawkins (born 27 March 1957) is a barrister and politician from the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. He was a Conservative Party

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 o ...

from 1992 to 2005.

Early life

Hawkins was educated at

Bedford Modern School Bedford Modern School (often called BMS) is a Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference independent school in Bedford, England. The school has its origins in The Harpur Trust, born from the endowments left by Sir William Harpur in the six ...

and Lincoln College, Oxford, and called to the Bar at the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn ...

in 1979.

Parliamentary career

Having stood unsuccessfully in

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...

, Hawkins became a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blackpool South in 1992. Prior to the 1997 general election, with polls predicting that the Conservatives had no chance of retaining the Blackpool South seat, Hawkins applied and was selected to contest the newly created constituency of Surrey Heath, predicted to be one of the safest Conservative seats in the country. He duly won the seat with a majority 16,287, the second-largest Conservative majority in the country that year (after John Major in

Huntingdon Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver Cromwell was born there ...

). Hawkins was re-elected in 2001 with a reduced majority of 10,819. Hawkins served in Prime Minister John Major's government in 1995–97, first at the Ministry of Defence and then at the then

Department of National Heritage , type = Department , logo = Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport logo.svg , logo_width = , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = Gove ...

. In opposition, he was appointed and promoted in a series of shadow ministerial jobs by four different Conservative Party leaders. Among other roles, he was Shadow Solicitor-General in 2003, a Shadow Home Office Minister on national security issues and drugs policy, Shadow Legal and Constitutional Affairs Minister, and Shadow spokesman on gambling twice (2000–01 and 2003–04).

Deselection

In April 2004, Hawkins was deselected as the Surrey Heath Conservative Association's parliamentary candidate, following a postal ballot of its 1,200 members in the constituency. His difficulties had begun when he left his wife for a Conservative county councillor in 1999, when a first attempt to deselect him had been defused by

Michael Ancram Michael Andrew Foster Jude Kerr, 13th Marquess of Lothian, Baron Kerr of Monteviot, (born 7 July 1945), commonly known as Michael Ancram, is a British politician and life peer who served as Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party from 2001 to ...

. The decision to drop Hawkins as the Surrey Heath candidate was taken despite appeals on his behalf by

Oliver Letwin Sir Oliver Letwin (born 19 May 1956) is a British politician, Member of Parliament (MP) for West Dorset from 1997 to 2019. Letwin was elected as a member of the Conservative Party, but sat as an independent after having the whip removed in S ...

William Hague William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

Ann Widdecombe Ann Noreen Widdecombe (born 4 October 1947) is a British politician, author and television personality. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone and The Weald, and the former Maidstone constituency, from 1987 to 2010 and Member of the ...

, and others. The party's leader at the time, Michael Howard, chose not to veto the association's decision. Hawkins was encouraged by the party leader and party chairman to stand again for a different constituency, but he decided instead to return to his legal career.Richest local Tory party drops fundraising ploy
''The Guardian'', 19 October 2004 He remained a Member of Parliament until the 2005 general election. Michael Gove, a journalist at ''The Times'', was selected as the new Conservative candidate for Surrey Heath in his place, and retained the seat.

After Parliament

After leaving parliament, Hawkins returned to his legal career as a corporate lawyer; he had previously been a barrister on circuit. He had also worked as in-house corporate counsel in banking, insurance, financial services and credit in the 1980s and early 1990s, was elected chairman of the national organisation for corporate barristers, The Bar Association for Commerce, Finance and Industry (BACFI), and elected to serve on the

General Council of the Bar The General Council of the Bar, commonly known as the Bar Council, is the representative body for barristers in England and Wales. Established in 1894, the Bar Council is the 'approved regulator' of barristers, but discharges its regulatory functi ...

(Bar Council) for six years and on its "inner cabinet", the GMC, for two years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawkins, Nick 1957 births Living people Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1992–1997 UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 People educated at Bedford Modern School Members of the Bow Group English barristers Members of the Middle Temple Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford