Christopher Nigel Beard (10 October 1936 – 31 July 2017) was a British Labour politician who served as

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) for Bexleyheath and Crayford in London from 1997 to 2005. He previously contested several parliamentary constituencies:

Woking Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in northwest Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'' and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settlement o ...

at the 1979 general election,

Portsmouth North Portsmouth North is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Penny Mordaunt, the current Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council. She is a Conservative MP. Boundaries 19 ...

at the 1983 general election and Erith and Crayford at the 1992 general election. At the 1997 general election he was returned as MP for Bexleyheath and Crayford. Before this he had been senior research manager for ICI and

Zeneca Zeneca (officially Zeneca Group PLC) was a British multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was formed in June 1993 by the demerger of the pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals businesses of Imperial Che ...

. He retained the seat at the 2001 election, but lost it in the 2005 election to

David Evennett Sir David Anthony Evennett (born 3 June 1949, Romford) is a Conservative politician. He was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bexleyheath and Crayford at the 2005 general election. Previously he was the MP for Erith and Crayford betwee ...

of the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

. Beard was a loyal follower of the Labour whip, voting for the

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...

and other government policies. He also introduced a

Private Member's Bill A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in wh ...

to fix

British Summer Time During British Summer Time (BST), civil time in the United Kingdom is advanced one hour forward of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), in effect changing the time zone from UTC±00:00 to UTC+01:00, so that mornings have one hour less daylight, and ...

as standard time all year round. He died at the age of 80 in July 2017, after a long illness.

References

External links

* 1936 births 2017 deaths Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 People educated at Castleford Academy Place of birth missing Place of death missing {{England-Labour-UK-MP-stub