Guto Bebb
Guto ap Owain Bebb is a Welsh politician and former business consultant who served as Member of Parliament for Aberconwy from the 2010 general election until the 2019 general election. He had previously unsuccessfully contested elections to both the Welsh Assembly and the House of Commons.
He served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Wales Office from 2016 to 2018, and as Minister for Defence Procurement at the Ministry of Defence from January 2018 until his resignation in July 2018. First elected as a Conservative, Bebb had the Conservative whip removed on 3 September 2019 and served his remaining months as an independent politician.
Early life and career
Bebb was born in Wrexham on 9 October 1968 to a family who originated from Bangor and Blaenau Ffestiniog, and was a student at Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen in Caernarfon. He graduated in 1990 from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, with a BA in history. He subsequently ran an economic development consultancy and also worked as the business development director of Innovas Wales. He was also a partner in his wife's bookshop.He is a former Plaid Cymru activist, and was chair of the party in Caernarfon. He defected to the Conservatives after failing to be selected as the party's candidate for the seat on long-serving incumbent Dafydd Wigley's retirement.
Bebb first stood for the Conservatives in 2002, when he contested the safe Labour seat of Ogmore in a 2002 by-election caused by the death of the Labour MP Sir Raymond Powell. He finished in fourth place, many votes behind the successful candidate, Huw Irranca-Davies. He stood again in the 2003 Welsh Assembly election in which he was a candidate in the now-abolished constituency of Conwy. He came third, behind Labour and Plaid Cymru. At the 2005 general election he stood in Conwy, this time coming second behind Labour.
Parliamentary career
At the 2010 general election, boundary changes led to the creation of a new constituency called Aberconwy, based on the former Conwy. Bebb was selected as the Conservative candidate for this new seat, and was returned as the MP for Aberconwy with a majority of 3,398 or 11.3%.He has been part of a number of delegations of the Conservative Friends of Israel group, including during the Operation Defensive Shield conflict when he visited for an Israeli military briefing on the Iron Dome defence system.
In 2013, Bebb voted against same-sex marriage. However, in 2019 he voted in favour same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland, signalling a change of opinion.
In March 2016, Bebb became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales, following Stephen Crabb's move to the Department for Work and Pensions, and Alun Cairns' subsequent promotion to Secretary of State for Wales. As part of Theresa May's January 2018 reshuffle he was promoted to the more senior position of Minister for Defence Procurement in the Ministry of Defence.
In the House of Commons he has previously sat on the Public Accounts Committee, the Members' Expenses Committee and the Welsh Affairs Committee.
Bebb stood down at the 2019 general election, citing concerns about the direction the Conservative Party was taking.
Work on Fair Business Banking
In January 2012, following a complaint by a constituent, Bebb raised the issue of the sale of Interest Rate Swap Agreements in Parliament. He asked the Leader of the House for a debate on the potential mis-selling of these complex interest rate hedging products by UK high street banks to over 40,000 small and medium-sized Businesses throughout the UK. He also asked the Financial Services Authority to look at this issue urgently and in detail. After Bebb had raised the issue in Parliament, the FSA announced that they would carry out an investigation into the way these products had been sold. On 21 June 2012, Bebb called a backbench business debate in the House of Commons to discuss the IRSA/IRHP mis-selling issue.After this debate, Bebb wrote to all MPs who had shown an interest in this subject inviting them to join an All Party Parliamentary Group. The purpose of this APPG was to seek meaningful redress for those SMEs that had been affected by the mis-selling of interest rate swaps and to pursue this on a cross-party basis. As of March 2015, there were over 100 MPs of various parties on the APPG, chaired by Calum Kerr MP, and the group has been renamed Fair Business Banking.
On 29 June 2012, the FSA reported that it had investigated the sale of IRSA/IRHPs to SMEs and had found evidence that over 90% of these sales had been mis-sales and that substantial damage had resulted to those SMEs mis-sold these products. The FSA announced that it had agreed with the four largest high street banks that a review and redress scheme would be put in place. This agreement was subsequently extended to a further seven banks. As a result of slow progress and poor customer outcomes from the bank-led FSA IRHP Review, Bebb subsequently called and led two further backbench debates on the issue—the last in December 2014 when MPs across the house criticised the poor performance of the now Financial Conduct Authority IRHP Review scheme.
Following hearings with the FCA and complaints from the APPG, victim groups, individual victims and various industry experts, the Treasury Select Committee, on 10 March 2015, published a report expressing concerns about the performance of the FCA's IRHP Redress Scheme and called for an independently monitored review of the Scheme. This call for an independent review of the FCA's IRHP Scheme was immediately backed by the then Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Andrea Leadsom. The FCA has not responded yet to either the TSC or HM Treasury.
Controversies
Bebb employs his wife as a part-time office manager. In August 2017, he was accused of nepotism after he made the appointment just before a parliamentary ban on such practices came into force. Some sections of the media had previously criticised the practice of MPs employing family members, on the lines that it is not fair to other potential candidates. Although MPs who were first elected in 2017 have been banned from employing family members, the restriction is not retrospective – meaning that Bebb's employment of his wife is lawful.In August 2013, it was reported that Bebb had claimed the third-highest food and drinks expenses claim in the country, as well as the highest overall expenses claim for an MP in North Wales. However, he responded that all his claims were within the revised expenses regulations. In October 2012, he was criticised for claiming expenses for first class tickets when he travelled by rail, despite official guidance from parliamentary watchdog IPSA - set up in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal - saying politicians should "consider value for money" when booking tickets. However, he argued that his claims were permissible within the expenses rules and that the first class tickets were cheaper than some standard class tickets available.
Bebb has attracted media attention for some of his more controversial language used when interacting with critical constituents. In 2014, Bebb became involved in a dispute with an Aberconwy constituent after an exchange on Twitter, leading to criticism in the media regarding his negative comments about Asperger's syndrome. In 2017, he accused a constituent of "talking out of his ****hole" when he challenged him on his voting record, asking him if he had voted against getting rid of the cap on public sector pay, as well as the deal between the Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party.
In April 2015, argumentative emails between Bebb and the chairman of his local Conservative Party Association were leaked and reported by the BBC. Bebb was accused of a lack of loyalty and support in regards to the Welsh Conservatives, not living in the constituency and being egocentric. Bebb responded that the chairman was a 'disgrace' and his work had been line with advice from the national Conservative Party.
European Union
Bebb was opposed to Brexit before the 2016 EU membership referendum. He retained Aberconwy in the 2017 general election with a small majority of 635 votes.On 16 July 2018, Bebb voted against the Government on the Taxation Bill, thereby resigning his role as Minister for Defence Procurement by convention of the payroll vote. He also supported the People's Vote campaign for a public vote on the final Brexit deal between the UK and the European Union, co-founding the group Right to Vote in early 2019.
Bebb resigned as a minister because he wanted to be free to endorse a second referendum on Brexit.