Jump to content

Paul Scully

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 80.195.133.135 (talk) at 12:31, 2 September 2018 (→Political career: removed partisan analysis of 2018 local elections, corrected former supporter of Leave means Leave and description of his former company and corrected 2010 election to reflect the fact that it was multi-member ward vote.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Paul Scully
MP
Conservative Party Vice Chairman for London
Incumbent
Assumed office
16 December 2017
Preceded byStephen Hammond
Member of Parliament
for Sutton and Cheam
Incumbent
Assumed office
8 May 2015
Preceded byPaul Burstow
Majority12,698 (24.5%)
Parliamentary Private Secretary to
the Leader of the House of Lords
In office
18 November 2017 – 16 January 2018
Prime MinisterTheresa May
Preceded byVictoria Atkins
Succeeded byLuke Hall
Personal details
Born (1968-04-29) 29 April 1968 (age 56)
Rugby, England[1]
Political partyConservative
Alma materUniversity of Reading
Websitewww.scully.org.uk

Paul Stuart Scully (born 29 April 1968) is a British Conservative Party politician who currently serves as Conservative Party's Vice Chairman for the London region, having replaced Stephen Hammond in December 2017 for rebelling against the government over the EU withdrawal bill.[2] He was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sutton and Cheam in 2015,[3] and held the seat in the 2017 general election.[4]

Early life

Scully was born in Rugby on the 29 April 1968. He was privately educated at Bedford School in Bedfordshire and the University of Reading.[5].He moved to London after graduating and ran a number of small businesses.[6] Scully joined the Conservative Party after the 1997 general election. He had previously voted for the Referendum Party - a Eurosceptic, single-issue political party that was active in the United Kingdom from 1994 to 1997.[7]

Political career

Scully unsuccessfully stood as the Conservative candidate in the Wallington South ward of the London Borough of Sutton in 2002, but was subsequently elected in the Carshalton Central ward in 2006.[8] He was the Leader of the Opposition on Sutton Council for three of his four years as a councillor.[9] However, he lost his seat at the following local election in 2010.[10] In addition to his work as a local councillor, Scully worked as a parliamentary aide for Conservative MPs Andrew Pelling, Shailesh Vara and Alok Sharma, and set up a corporate communications company called Nudge Factory Ltd in 2011.[11]

He was selected as the Conservative Party candidate and subsequently elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sutton and Cheam in 2015,[12] and was re-elected in the 2017 general election.[13]

In September 2017, he was appointed as the Prime Minister's Trade Envoy to Brunei, Thailand and Burma and was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Baroness Evans, the Leader of the House of Lords between November 2017 and January 2018. He is "very proud" of his Burmese heritage.[14] In a parliamentary debate on 22 October 2015, he stated, "I am, I believe, the first Member of the British Parliament to be of Burmese heritage."[15] He visited Myanmar for the first time in February 2016.[16] He has been active in human rights issues in Burma, especially the Rohingya refugee situation and is the Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Burma. He has written about his experience of being one of the first British MPs to visit the Kutupalong refugee camp during the 2017 mass movement.[17]

He campaigned for a Leave vote in the 2016 EU referendum,[18][19] and was a supporter of the campaign group Leave Means Leave.[20]

On 15 December 2017, he was confirmed as the Conservative Party's new Vice Chairman for London, following the sacking of Stephen Hammond two days earlier for his failure to vote with the Government on a key vote relating to the United Kingdom departing the European Union.[21] He helped manage the Conservative Party's campaign in the 2018 London local elections.

In Parliament, he is a member of the International Development Committee and the chair of its sub-committee overseeing the work of Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI). He is also a member of the Petitions Committee on whose behalf he has led a number of debates.[22]

Controversies

In May 2016, it emerged that Scully was one of a number of Conservative MPs being investigated by police in the United Kingdom general election, 2015 party spending investigation, for allegedly spending more than the legal limit on constituency election campaign expenses.[23] However, in May 2017, this was dismissed by the Crown Prosecution Service.[24]

In Spring 2017, comments made by Scully at an election hustings event and on a regional BBC politics programme relating to building a new hospital in Sutton were criticised by left-wing campaigners as representing an acceptance of closing some existing local medic facilities, such as the St Helier Hospital. However, Scully argued that he still remained committed to retaining facilities at the St Helier Hospital, where he had previously volunteered.[25] [26]

In October 2017, Scully was featured in national media coverage relating to four serving MPs who had business interest in lobbying companies, despite recent attempts to limit on the industry's access to Parliament. Afer being elected as an MP, Scully remained a director of the company Nudge Factory Ltd and owned a 40% stake in it. The article referred to a Parliamentary Question that Scully had recently tabled about the time it takes to bring derelict land back into use, with his supplementary question covering the matter of land owned by the NHS and targeted by Sutton council on which to build a biotech campus. However, Scully's business partner, Ahzaz Chowdhury, refuted all allegations. He responded that Scully stopped taking a salary from the company before being elected and that he had never asked any parliamentary questions prompted by the company or its clients.[27] Scully's wife Emma is employed by Nudge Factory Ltd as an Office Manager and became 'a person with significant control' on 1 April 2018.[28] [29]

Personal life

Scully is married and has two grown up children. He lives in London.[30]

References

  1. ^ MyParliament.
  2. ^ "Vice Chairman for London, in comes Scully!". Conservative Home.
  3. ^ "Conservative Paul Scully elected to Sutton and Cheam after defeating Lib Dem Paul Burstow" (Sutton Guardian, 8 May 2015). Archived copy.
  4. ^ Sutton & Cheam Parliamentary constituency (BBC News).
  5. ^ "SCULLY, Paul Stuart", Who's Who 2016, A & C Black.
  6. ^ "About Paul". Personal website. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  7. ^ [https://hansard.parliament.uk/html/Commons/2018-01-22/CommonsChamber#1WH HC Deb, 22 January 2018 vol 635 c1WH ] (Hansard).
  8. ^ "Sutton Council Election Results 1964-2010" (PDF). Plymouth University. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  9. ^ "Sutton council website" (London Borough of Sutton, 21 January 2018)
  10. ^ "Sutton Council Election Results 1964-2010" (PDF). Plymouth University. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  11. ^ "About Paul". Party website. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  12. ^ "Conservative Paul Scully elected to Sutton and Cheam after defeating Lib Dem Paul Burstow" (Sutton Guardian, 8 May 2015). Archived copy.
  13. ^ Sutton & Cheam Parliamentary constituency (BBC News).
  14. ^ "British MP-Elect ‘Proud’ of Burma Heritage" (The Irrawaddy, 13 May 2015). Archived copy.
  15. ^ [https://hansard.parliament.uk/html/Commons/2015-10-22/CommonsChamber#1263 HC Deb, 22 October 2015 vol 600 c1263 ] (Hansard).
  16. ^ "British MP traces family footsteps in first-ever Myanmar visit" (Coconuts Yangon, 15 February 2016). Archived copy.
  17. ^ "The refugees trapped in no man’s land" (The Times, 21 September 2017).
  18. ^ "EU referendum: Six 2015 Conservative MPs back leaving EU" (BBC News, 4 January 2016). Archived copy.
  19. ^ "Paul Scully: I'll be voting to leave the undemocratic, bureaucratic EU" (YouTube, 29 April 2016).
  20. ^ Leave Means Leave: Who We Are. Archived copy.
  21. ^ "Scully replaces Hammond as Party Vice-Chair for London" (ConservativeHome, 16 December 2017).
  22. ^ "Paul Scully MP". GOV.UK. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  23. ^ "Election Expenses Exposed". Channel 4 News. 23 June 2016. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  24. ^ "Sutton and Cheam MP Paul Scully will not be prosecuted over Conservative's undeclared election spending". Sutton Guardian. 10 May 2017. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  25. ^ "Video: Conservative candidate for Sutton and Cheam, Paul Scully's 'third hospital' plans stoke campaigners' fears of Epsom and St Helier closures". Epsom Guardian. 6 June 2017. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  26. ^ "Sunday Politics London 23 April 2017". BBC. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  27. ^ "Tory MP's business partner lashes out over lobbying story". Public Affairs News. 16 October 2017. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  28. ^ "Register of Members Interests 2016-17". Parliament. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  29. ^ "Nudge Factory Ltd". Companies House. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  30. ^ "About Paul". Personal website. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament
for Sutton and Cheam
2015–present 		Incumbent
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Scully&oldid=857698717"