Robert Buckland

Political career

Buckland stood as the Conservative Party candidate for Elli Ward on Dyfed County Council in May 1993 where he won the seat from Labour with a majority of just 3 votes. It was reported that he was the first Conservative "in living memory" to have been elected in the Llanelli area.^[6] Following local government reorganisation, the Elli Ward became part of the unitary Carmarthenshire County Council and Buckland stood again in 1995 where he lost to the Labour candidate by over 200 votes.^[7] In 1994, Buckland stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative Party candidate for the safe Labour European Parliament seat of South Wales West. In 1995, Buckland stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative Party candidate for the safe Labour parliamentary seat of Islwyn in a by-election. This had been caused by the appointment of the sitting MP Neil Kinnock as European Commissioner. The by-election was held at a time of unpopularity for the Conservative Government, and was comfortably won by the Labour candidate, Don Touhig, with Buckland polling only 3.9% of the vote. He went on to stand unsuccessfully for the Conservative Party as their candidate for Preseli Pembrokeshire at the 1997 general election. He was on the Conservative Party list of candidates for Wales at the 1999 European elections, but was again unsuccessful.

In 2005, Buckland was selected as the Conservative Party's prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Swindon South, replacing former MP Simon Coombs who had represented Swindon between 1983 and 1997, and had unsuccessfully contested the seat in 2001. At the 2005 general election, Buckland lost to Labour candidate Anne Snelgrove, who polled 17,534 votes to his 16,181, a narrow majority of 1,353 votes.

Parliamentary career

Following defeat in 2005, Buckland won the South Swindon seat at the 2010 general election with a majority of 3,544 votes. This represented a swing of 5.51% to the Conservatives. He obtained 19,687 votes, (41.8% of the total) compared to 16,143 votes for the incumbent Snelgrove.

In 2010, Buckland was elected to the Justice Select Committee. In 2012, Buckland along with fellow Tory MP Stuart Andrew, called for prisoners' mobile phones to be destroyed or sold to raise money for victims' charities, saying that mobiles in prison were a "menace" and that selling them would provide a service to the country, as it costs £20,000 a year to store criminals' phones. They were both supported by Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Legal Aid and Legal Services Jeremy Wright and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice Sadiq Khan.^[8] He chaired the All Party Group on Autism from 2011 to 2014 and was an officer of the All Party Group on Speech, Language and Communication.

On 4 December 2012 Buckland was elected Joint Secretary of the influential 1922 Backbench Committee. He was also Chair of the Conservative Human Rights Commission from 2011 to 2014. He also sat on the Standards Committee and the Privileges Committee from 2012 to 2014. He also served on the Joint Committee on Human Rights from 2013 to 2014 and the Joint Committee on Privacy and Superinjunctions which was convened from 2011 to 2012.^[9]

On 15 July 2014, Buckland was appointed Solicitor General for England and Wales, replacing Oliver Heald as part of a wide-ranging government reshuffle.^[10]

As Solicitor General, Buckland took the Serious Crime Bill 2014 (now the Serious Crime Act 2015) through its Commons stages in Bill Committee. The Bill contained provisions that, amongst other things, updated the criminal law of child neglect and introduced a criminal offence of coercive control of people within close relationships in a domestic context. As a backbencher, he had campaigned on these issues. In 2015, he worked with Home Office Minister James Brokenshire to take the Immigration Bill through its Commons stages. In 2016, he successfully helped to take the Investigatory Powers Bill through its Commons stages.

In 2017 and 2018, he was one of the Ministers who took the EU Withdrawal Bill through its Commons stages. In September 2018, he appeared for the U.K. in International Court of Justice Advisory proceedings in The Hague that were brought by Mauritius in relation to the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

One of his Ministerial functions is the making of references to the Court of Appeal about certain Crown Court sentences that may be Unduly Lenient. He has conducted many of his own references before the Court in person.

In the 2015 general election, Buckland retained his seat with an increased majority of 5,785 votes, a swing of 2.2% to the Conservatives and an increase of 4.5% in the Conservative vote. In the 2017 general election, Buckland again held his seat, but with a decreased majority of 2,484 votes, a swing of 3.5% to Labour but with an increase of 8.9% in the Conservative vote.

In the House of Commons he has sat on the Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art, Statutory Instruments (Select and Joint Committees), Standards and Privileges Committee, Privacy and Injunctions (Joint Committee), Consolidation Bills (Joint Committee), Justice Committee and Human Rights (Joint Committee).^[11]

His appointment as Solicitor General for England and Wales in July 2014 attracted controversy after it was revealed he had been found guilty of professional misconduct by the Bar Standards Board for a case related to work in 2008. He had headed up an investigation into a racially-motivated attack at a school at which he was a governor. In response, the Attorney General's office stated that Buckland's breach had been "minor" and that the finding "was removed from the Bar records after two years and therefore Mr Buckland was not required to declare it upon appointment as Solicitor General."^[12]

In February 2015, it was reported that Buckland was one of a number of individuals investing in the Invicta Film Partnership, which HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) had alleged to be a tax avoidance scheme. This followed a tax tribunal that had ruled that two film partnership schemes were being used primarily for tax avoidance rather than for business purposes and that the investors were not therefore entitled to the claimed tax relief. Buckland responded that he had not attempted to avoid tax and his investments were a matter of public record. He argued his financial adviser had looked into the companies and found them to be completely beyond reproach.^[13] In April 2016, he attracted further controversy after it was revealed he was one of 12 ministers using 'blind trusts'. Investments within a blind trust can be kept completely private as financial control is handed to a third party, resulting in issues of transparency for politicians. However, such financial arrangements are legal and had been used by, amongst others, the Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron.