Lord Frost urged to stand for Parish’s seat in by-election
ALLIES are urging Lord Frost to stand in the by-election that will be created by Neil Parish’s departure from his traditionally safe Conservative seat, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.
Several friends and allies are understood to have approached the former Brexit minister suggesting he quit the Lords and put his name forward to succeed Mr Parish as the new Tory candidate for Tiverton and Honiton in Devon, which has a Tory majority of 24,000.
Last night, one ally described Lord Frost as “a proper Conservative” with “star quality”, who could even be a potential successor to Boris Johnson.
Lord Frost, who quit the Government last year and has since written a series of articles in The Telegraph outlining a vision for a smaller state with less regulation and tax, is understood to have indicated to friends that he would consider contesting the seat if Conservative headquarters “want him to do it”.
Last month it was reported that friends had suggested the peer as a potential candidate for Wakefield, where the incumbent, Imran Ahmad Khan, resigned after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.
One former minister said: “Frost is a serious figure who thinks carefully and communicates well. We need him in the House of Commons.
“I think Tiverton is probably a more likely stomping ground for him [than Wakefield]. He would be well received there and I’m pretty sure he would win.”
Members of the House of Lords cannot stand for election in the Commons. But, as a result of changes introduced in 2014, Lord Frost could resign from the Lords to stand for a Commons seat.
The former minister said Lord Frost could be a potential future Tory leader, saying: “There is a long way to go before we get there, but he is a person of a quality you tend not to find often in the Commons or Lords nowadays.
“He probably has more support within the Conservative Party than any of the names we are seeing suggested, and he is contributing more to the internal debate than any MP I know. He is thinking about where we should be going.”
Opposition parties will be hoping for a backlash in Tiverton and Honiton akin to the Conservatives’ defeat in North Shropshire following the resignation of Owen Paterson last year. Yesterday, the Liberal Democrats said the Tories should “swiftly call a by-election, so the people of Tiverton and Honiton can finally get the proper representation they deserve”.
Under rules dating from the 17th century, MPs cannot directly resign their seat, meaning that Chris Heaton-Harris, the Chief Whip, will need to move a formal writ, or motion, assigning Mr Parish to a nominal Crown role, which would disqualify him from remaining in the Commons. Writs are usually issued within three months of a seat becoming vacant, with the resulting by-election held from 21 to 27 working days later. In an article in yesterday’s Telegraph, Lord Frost, who has been critical of the direction of Boris Johnson’s administration, said Britain had developed “a strongly established culture of dependency, where people look to the state to solve their problems rather than making efforts themselves, and where business faces ever-growing practical obstacles to normal commercial activity”.
He added: “It is always difficult to call a halt, but call it we must. This is a Conservative government and it is time to talk about Conservative principles – not only of low taxation and enterprise, but of freedom to act, to create and retain wealth, to debate and to speak freely even if others don’t like your opinions.”