Peter Temple-Morris, Baron Temple-Morris (Q70398)

Peter Temple-Morris was born on February 12th 1938 in Cardiff and was elected as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Leominster in February 1974. He resigned from the Conservative Party over disagreements with the leadership over the Euro shortly after being re-elected in 1997 and sat as an Independent One Nation Conservative until he joined the Labour Party in June 1998. He did not contest the 2001 election and was elevated to the peerage as Baron Temple-Morris of Llandaff in the County of South Glamorgan and of Leominster in the County of Herefordshire. He served as chair of the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union 1982-85 and the first British co-chairman of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body 1990-97. He was a member of various left groupings in the Conservative Party including the Lollards, the Macleod Group and Mainstream. A strong supporter of Michael Heseltine, he was the subject of an unsuccessful deselection attempt over his role in the ousting of Margaret Thatcher as leader of the Conservative Party. He was educated at Hillstone School, Malvern, Malvern College and received a BA in law in 1961 and an MA in 1965 from St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge (MA). He was called to Bar at Inner Temple in 1962 acted as Judge’s Marshal on the Midland Circuit in 1958, practiced on the Wales and Chester Circuit between 1963 and 1966 and the London and South East Circuit between 1966 and 1976. Before being elected at Leominster he contested Newport in 1964 and 1966 and Norwood in 1970.