Eric Jack Pickles
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Eric Jack Pickles, Baron Pickles, (born 20 April 1952) is a British Conservative Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Brentwood and Ongar from
1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...
to
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. He served in
David Cameron David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...
's Cabinet as
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government The secretary of state for housing, communities and local government is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom and is the Cabinet minister responsible for the overall leadership and strategic direction of the Ministry of Ho ...
from 2010 to 2015. He previously served as
Chairman of the Conservative Party The chairman of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom is responsible for party administration and overseeing the Conservative Campaign Headquarters, formerly Conservative Central Office. When the Conservative Party (UK), Conservatives are ...
from 2009 to 2010 and was later the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion from 2015 to 2017. Pickles was appointed the UK Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust issues in 2015. He stood down as an MP at the 2017 general election, but continued in his role as Special Envoy under Prime Ministers
Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Baroness May of Maidenhead (; ; born 1 October 1956), is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served as Home Secretar ...
,
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,
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and
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. He is the chairman of
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in the
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as of 2023.


Early life

Eric Jack Pickles was born on 20 April 1952, the son of Jack and Constance Pickles. Born in
Keighley Keighley ( ) is a market town and a civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second-largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford. Keighley is north-west of Bradford, n ...
,
West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...
, he attended Greenhead Grammar School (now Carlton Keighley) and then studied at Leeds Polytechnic. He was born into a Labour-supporting family – his great-grandfather was one of the founders of the
Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse work ...
, and Pickles described himself as "massively inclined" towards communism as a boy.


Young Conservatives

After the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, he joined the local Keighley Branch of the Young Conservatives in 1968, later commenting "I joined because of the invasion of Czechoslovakia. I was so shocked by the tanks. It was not the best way of fighting Brezhnev, but it made me feel better".(free electronic edition, October 1996)
Pickles soon became the chairman of the local Young Conservatives association. During his time in the Young Conservatives he became a member of the Joint Committee Against Racism from 1982 to 1987 and later became its chairman. His period as national Young Conservative chairman saw growing factionalism with challenges from a southern-based right wing to Pickles' moderate leadership. Pickles also moved against right-wingers in Bradford, expelling the Young Conservative, Yorkshire Chairman of the Monday Club who had stood for the Bradford Wyke Ward on an anti-immigrant platform from the Bradford area constituencies.


Bradford councillor

Pickles was first elected to
Bradford Council City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council is the Local government in England, local authority of the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England. Bradford has had an elected council since 1847, which has been reformed on several occasions. ...
in 1979, representing the Worth Valley ward. From 1982 to 1984, he chaired that Council's Social Services Committee, and then, from 1984 to 1986, he chaired the Education Committee. Between 1988 and 1990, he served as leader of the Conservative group on the council. In September 1988 the Conservative Party gained control by using the Conservative mayor's casting vote to become the only inner-city council to be controlled by the Conservatives. When Bradford Council was hung, Pickles opted to break the agreement that the position of Lord Mayor is rotated between the parties, when he put a Conservative mayor in place again. This effectively gave the Conservatives a majority due to the Lord Mayor's casting vote. To do this, they also broke the tradition that the Lord Mayor kept the status quo. Whilst at Bradford, Pickles announced a five-year plan to cut the council's budget by £50m, reduce the workforce by a third, privatise services and undertake council departmental restructures, many of which proved controversial. A book, ''The Pickles Papers'', by Tony Grogan, was written about this period in Pickles' life.


Parliamentary career

Pickles was elected as Member of Parliament for Brentwood and Ongar in 1992. At the 2001 general election, the
independent politician An independent politician or non-affiliated politician is a politician not affiliated with any political party or Bureaucracy, bureaucratic association. There are numerous reasons why someone may stand for office as an independent. Some politicia ...
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, who had been the MP for Tatton, having run a campaign of "anti-sleaze", stood against Pickles, due to accusations that the Peniel Pentecostal Church had infiltrated the local Conservative branch. Pickles's vote was reduced from 45.4% to 38%, but he retained his seat by a margin of 2,821 votes (6.5%) becoming elected with 38% of the votes against Bell's 31.5%. Pickles served as Shadow Minister for Transport and Shadow Minister for London from September 2001 to June 2002, then as Shadow Minister for
Local Government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of a higher-level political or administrative unit, such a ...
from June 2002. At the 2005 general election Pickles held his seat with 53.5% of the votes and an increased majority of 11,612 (26.3%), nearly as many as the number of votes for the second-placed candidate, making this the second-safest Conservative seat in Eastern England, with Pickles taking the third-highest share of the vote cast in the region. On 2 July 2007,
David Cameron David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...
appointed Pickles to a reshuffled Shadow Cabinet as shadow
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government The secretary of state for housing, communities and local government is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom and is the Cabinet minister responsible for the overall leadership and strategic direction of the Ministry of Ho ...
. On 30 December 2008, according to reports in ''The Times'', Pickles unveiled plans to "purge town hall 'fat cats'". ''The Times'' reported that under the plans "dozens of council chiefs who earn more than Cabinet ministers would lose their jobs as clusters of councils merged their frontline services and backroom operations to provide better value for money." Of the eight highest-earning chief executives listed in ''The Times report, six were employed by councils run by the Conservative party, one by Labour and one by the Liberal Democrats. Pickles was the campaign manager for the successful Crewe and Nantwich by-election in May 2008. Following this, he was promoted to
Chairman of the Conservative Party The chairman of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom is responsible for party administration and overseeing the Conservative Campaign Headquarters, formerly Conservative Central Office. When the Conservative Party (UK), Conservatives are ...
, a post he held from January 2009 to May 2010. In early 2010, Prime Minister
Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. Previously, he was Chancellor of the Ex ...
outlined plans to reform the voting system in the United Kingdom. Pickles defended the
first-past-the-post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...
system as resulting in stable government and attacked Brown, claiming he "now wants to fiddle the electoral system" by wanting to change the voting system. Pickles was the
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government The secretary of state for housing, communities and local government is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom and is the Cabinet minister responsible for the overall leadership and strategic direction of the Ministry of Ho ...
in the coalition government headed by Prime Minister
David Cameron David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...
from 12 May 2010 to May 2015. Although a former
Eurosceptic Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies and seek refor ...
, in January 2016 Pickles became a founding member of the group Conservatives For Reform In Europe, a campaign to remain in the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
on the basis that the EU would be reformed by the
negotiations Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more parties to resolve points of difference, gain an advantage for an individual or Collective bargaining, collective, or craft outcomes to satisfy various interests. The parties aspire to agree on m ...
then being led by Prime Minister David Cameron. In April 2017, Pickles announced he would not stand at the general election the following month. Later that year, he was appointed chairman of the journal ''Parliamentary Review''. Speaking live to GB News on 4 October 2022, Pickles stated that he had attended his 52nd consecutive Conservative Party Annual Conference that year.


Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

Pickles was appointed as
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government The secretary of state for housing, communities and local government is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom and is the Cabinet minister responsible for the overall leadership and strategic direction of the Ministry of Ho ...
as part of David Cameron's new coalition Government on 12 May 2010, and sworn as a
Privy Counsellor The Privy Council, formally His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its members, known as privy counsellors, are mainly senior politicians who are current or former ...
on 13 May 2010. In his role as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, on 30 July 2010, Pickles announced plans to hand powers where ministers can cap what they deem to be unreasonable increases in council taxes to local people. A consultation began in August 2010 and the powers, which will require legislation, should be in force by March 2012. Pickles said he was determined to reverse the presumption that Whitehall knows best by making local councils directly accountable to the local taxpayer. He said: "If councils want to increase council tax further, they will have to prove the case to the electorate. Let the people decide". Residents would be asked to choose between accepting the rise or rejecting it and instead accepting a below inflation rise, but with reduced council services. The average council tax on a Band D property increased from £688 a year in 1997/98 to £1,439 for 2010. In August 2010 Pickles unexpectedly announced the closure of the Audit Commission for England and Wales. The commission had overseen the appointment of independent external auditors for local authorities, and supported audit work to ensure value for money and the certification of Councils' financial accounts. Closure took until March 2015. Commentators questioned whether Whitehall would struggle to check whether council services and finances were about to fall over, particularly when money was channelled through public / private companies. In the aftermath of a series of major financial crises at local authorities such as Woking Borough Council and Thurrock, identified from 2021, senior figures in local government finance identified the critical need to reinstate functions formerly discharged by the Audit Commission and for a strong system leader to oversee councils and local audit. Pickles is a figure who does not shun controversy. In ''
The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
'', Will Hutton appraised his role with regard to local government as follows: "Local government minister Eric Pickles has colluded cheerfully with George Osborne to knock local government back to being no more than rat catchers and managers of street lighting. Indeed, they scarcely give them the funds to carry out these activities". In December 2014, asked in Parliament if people who left their wheelie bins in the street after a collection should be punished, he said they should be flogged -though he also said flogging was too good for them and that leaving the bin in the middle of the road was poor behaviour. The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal was unearthed during Pickles' tenure, and in February 2015 he announced a strategy to implement commissioners at Rotherham Council in the wake of the Casey Report, which had been commissioned in 2014 to investigate child sex abuse in Rotherham. Seven councillors resigned as a result of the damning report, which revealed that the local authority was "wholly dysfunctional" and that the failure to protect 1,400 girls from sexual abuse was a result of "complacency, institutionalised political correctness" and "blatant failures of political and officer leadership".


Localism Act

Pickles was responsible for the
Localism Act 2011 The Localism Act 2011 (c. 20) is an Act of Parliament that changes the powers of local government in England. The aim of the act is to facilitate the devolution of decision-making powers from central government control to individuals and commun ...
that changed the powers of
local government in England Local government in England broadly consists of three layers: civil parishes, local authorities, and regional authorities. Every part of England is governed by at least one local authority, but parish councils and regional authorities do not ex ...
. The measures affected by the Act include more elected mayors and
referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...
s. The Localism Act opens with Part 1, Chapter 1(1), under the heading "Local authority's general power of competence", "A local council has power to do anything that individuals generally may do". The bill was introduced by Pickles, and given its
first reading A reading of a bill is a stage of debate on the bill held by a general body of a legislature. In the Westminster system, developed in the United Kingdom, there are generally three readings of a bill as it passes through the stages of becoming, ...
on 13 December 2010. The Bill completed the third reading in the House of Lords on 31 October 2011. The bill received
royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...
on 15 November 2011. The bill was quickly undermined, however, after it was published on 13 December. One of the claims made for it is that it would "give local communities real control over housing and planning decisions", but on the same day, Pickles issued a decision in a planning appeal. The National Grid had applied to Tewkesbury Borough Council to build a gas plant just outside Tirley in
Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...
. The installation would occupy more than 16 acres and the application had been opposed by more than 1,000 residents in a sparsely populated rural area, by 12 parish councils and by every member of the planning committee of the local planning authority. Rejecting the local opposition, Pickles chose to grant permission to build the gas plant. In April 2014, South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon welcomed the decision that Pickles and the DCLG would have final say over the building of wind turbines. By June 2014, Pickles had intervened on 12 windfarm projects and rejected 10 of them, against the recommendations from planning inspectors, rising to 50 rejections by October 2014.


Council prayers

On 10 February 2012, the
National Secular Society The National Secular Society (NSS) is a British campaigning organisation that promotes secularism and the separation of church and state. It holds that no one should gain advantage or disadvantage because of their religion or lack of it. The Soc ...
obtained a High Court judicial review of
Christian prayer Christian prayer is an important activity in Christianity, and there are several different forms used for this practice. Christian prayers are diverse: they can be completely spontaneous, or read entirely from a text, such as from a breviary, wh ...
s held as part of formal local council meetings, which councillors disagreeing with the practice had to attend if not wishing to walk out discourteously. Mr Justice Ouseley ruled: "The saying of prayers as part of the formal meeting of a Council is not lawful under s. 111 of the
Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...
, and there is no statutory power permitting the practice to continue. I do not think the 1972 Act should be interpreted as permitting the religious views of one group of councillors, however sincere or large in number, to exclude, or even to a modest extent, to impose burdens on or even to mark out those who do not share their views and do not wish to participate in their expression of them. They are all equally elected councillors". Prayers were permitted to be held before the start of the formal agenda. Eric Pickles vowed to reverse the High Court decision, despite a
YouGov YouGov plc is a international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm headquartered in the UK with operations in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. History 2000–2010 Stephan Shakespeare and Nadhim ...
poll which found that 55% of people were against councils holding prayers, and 26% in favour. Eric Pickles brought forward his Localism Act, due to become law in April 2012, and made it law on 17 February 2012, saying that he was 'effectively reversing' the High Court decision. Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, commented "A number of senior lawyers have expressed doubt whether the Localism Act will, as Mr Pickles hopes, make prayers lawful, and the Act was clearly not passed with that express intention. His powers to pass legislation are not, as he implies, untrammelled. Council prayers increasingly look set to become a battle between the Government and the courts at ever higher levels". The Localism Act states that "a local authority has power to do anything that individuals generally may do". Eric Pickles wrote to faith leaders, local authority leaders, and the Society of Local Council Clerks, and telling parish councils "Once the power is in place, eligible parish councils will be able to include prayers as part of their formal business". In April 2013, referring to the issue of prayers in council meetings, Pickles said in a speech at the Conservative Spring Forum that "militant atheists" should accept that Britain is a Christian country. In 2015 the Local Government (Religious Observances) Act, which was welcomed by Pickles, authorised councils to hold prayers at the start of sessions.


Troubled Families

Pickles led the Troubled Families Programme designed to turn around 120,000 dysfunctional families responsible, at a cost of around £400 million. According to David Cameron, these families were responsible for 'a large proportion of the problems in society'. The families were selected for having 5 of 7 measures of social and economic deprivation. Pickles claimed repeatedly that these families cost the state £9 billion per annum. In March 2015 Pickles declared the programme a 'triumph' in the House of Commons after it allegedly 'turned around' 105,600 families of 117,910 processed and saved £1.2 billion per annum. £1.2 billion per annum was a hypothetical number based on assumptions that alleged improvements in behaviour would be sustained and depended on removing the high costs associated with disabled children and chronically sick, unemployed adults. The Evaluation by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research was published on 17 October 2016. The report found that there had been "no significant impact" of the scheme. A press release from NIESR stated, "we were unable to find consistent evidence that the programme had any significant or systematic impact". The Times reported the following day, "the report was published quietly last night after complaints from Whitehall insiders that it was being suppressed". The
Public Accounts Committee A public accounts committee (PAC) is a committee within a legislature whose role is to study public audits, invite ministers, permanent secretaries or other ministry officials to the committee for questioning, and report on their findings subseque ...
published its report on 19 December 2016. They concluded that the delay in publication had been unacceptable, that DCLG had failed to demonstrate that the programme had any significant impact and that the terminology of saying that the families had been "turned around" was misleading given that many of the families had continuing problems after a result had been claimed. The PAC chairwoman, Meg Hillier, commented that the report was "far more serious" than "a slap on the wrist" for ministers.


Flooding of the Somerset Levels

From December 2013 onwards the
Somerset Levels The Somerset Levels are a coastal plain and wetland area of Somerset, England, running south from the Mendips to the Blackdown Hills. The Somerset Levels have an area of about and are bisected by the Polden Hills; the areas to the south ...
suffered severe flooding as part of the wider 2013-2014 Atlantic winter storms in Europe and subsequent 2013–2014 United Kingdom winter floods. There were public calls for the rivers Parrett and Tone, in particular, to be dredged. The Environment Agency was blamed for not having dredged the major river channels of the Levels. The Environment Agency and others pointed out that it would be more effective to spend money on delaying floodwaters upstream, and that increasing the capacity of rivers by
dredging Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing d ...
would be of no significant use; the Environment Secretary defended the Agency. Roger Falconer, Professor of Water Management at Cardiff University, and other hydrologists made clear that dredging did not offer a useful solution to flooding on the Somerset Levels. On 7 February, the Environment Secretary needed an urgent operation and handed over the flood management to Eric Pickles. Pickles then appeared on '' The Andrew Marr Show'' and apologised "unreservedly" for not dredging the Somerset Levels and said that "the government may have relied too much on the advice" of the Environment Agency. The head of the Environment Agency Lord Chris Smith rejected the criticism of his organisation. The Environment Secretary protested in the strongest possible terms to the Prime Minister about Pickles' "grandstanding".


Controversies


Second home

On 26 March 2009, Pickles appeared on the political debate programme '' Question Time'' in
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...
. While discussing the controversy over Tony McNulty (who had recently admitted claiming expenses on a second home, occupied by his parents, only 8 miles away from his primary residence), Pickles admitted he claimed a second home allowance because he lived 37 miles from
Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...
and needed to leave his constituency house in Brentwood at 5.30 am to get to Westminster for 9.30 am, given that he tended to get home at midnight or 1 am, although the standard time for commuters from this region is usually ninety minutes. He went on to say that it was "no fun" commuting into London from where he lived. In response to Pickles's comments that he "had to be there he House of Commonson time", ''Question Time'' host David Dimbleby, replied "Like a job, in other words?" and fellow panellist
Caroline Lucas Caroline Patricia Lucas (born 9 December 1960) is a British politician who was the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2003 to 2006, 2007 to 2012, and 2016 to 2018. She was Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parli ...
added 'welcome to the real world', both of which prompted amusement and applause amongst the audience. Pickles was asked to pay back £300 following the MP's expenses scandal, which he had claimed for cleaning.


Grenfell Tower Inquiry controversy

The
Grenfell Tower fire On 14 June 2017, a List of fires in high-rise buildings, high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of Public housing in the United Kingdom, flats in North Kensington, West London, England, at 00:54 British Summer Time, BST ...
, which killed 72 people and destroyed
Grenfell Tower Grenfell Tower is a derelict 24-storey residential tower block in North Kensington in West London, England. The tower was completed in 1974 as part of the first phase of the Lancaster West Estate. Most of the tower was destroyed in a Grenfell T ...
in North Kensington, London, happened on 14 June 2017 when Pickles was no longer the minister responsible for housing, but the tower's renovation using flammable cladding was designed and agreed while he was housing minister. On 7 April 2022, Pickles was giving evidence to the
Grenfell Tower Inquiry The Grenfell Tower Inquiry was a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Theresa May on the ...
based on his experience as Secretary of State for Housing from 2010 to 2015. He went on to challenge the inquiry not to waste his time while giving evidence, before getting the death toll from the disaster wrong. He later apologised, claiming he "misspoke". The
Grenfell Tower Inquiry The Grenfell Tower Inquiry was a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Theresa May on the ...
final report, published on 4 September 2024, was critical of Pickles and his government department for failing to act on a 2013 coroner recommendation to improve cladding fire safety regulations and for his enthusiastic support of a programme to slash regulations which dominated department thinking. This led to calls for him to resign from the
House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...
and as a government ethics adviser.


Personal life

Pickles married Irene Coates in 1976 in Staincliffe, a district of Batley in West Yorkshire.


Honours

* Eric Pickles was sworn in as a member of
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council The Privy Council, formally His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a privy council, formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its members, known as privy counsellors, are mainly senior politicians who are curre ...
in 2010. This gave him the Honorific Prefix "
The Right Honourable ''The Right Honourable'' (abbreviation: The Rt Hon. or variations) is an honorific Style (form of address), style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire, and the Commonwealt ...
" and after
Ennoblement Ennoblement is the conferring of nobility—the induction of an individual into the noble class. Currently only a few kingdoms still grant nobility to people; among them Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Vatican. Depending on time and reg ...
the Post Nominal Letters "PC" for Life. * On 22 May 2015 it was announced that Pickles was to be appointed a
Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised Order of chivalry, orders of chivalry; it is a part of the Orders, decorations, and medals ...
. * He was nominated for a
Life Peerage In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister. With the exception of the D ...
by
Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Baroness May of Maidenhead (; ; born 1 October 1956), is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served as Home Secretar ...
on 18 May 2018. On 18 June 2018 he was created Baron Pickles, of Brentwood and Ongar in the County of Essex. He sits on the Conservative Party benches in the
House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...
.


Notes


References


Sources

*
(free electronic edition, October 1996)


External links


Eric Pickles MP
''official constituency website''
Eric Pickles
parliamentary activity from
TheyWorkForYou TheyWorkForYou is a parliamentary monitoring website operated by mySociety which aims to make it easier for UK citizens to understand what is going on in Westminster, as well as the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assem ...
*
Contributor page
at ''The Guardian'' *


''Eric Pickles news''
at publicservice.co.uk * , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Pickles, Eric 1952 births Borough of Brentwood Chairmen of the Conservative Party (UK) Conservative Party (UK) councillors Conservative Party (UK) life peers Life peers created by Elizabeth II Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Councillors in Bradford Former Marxists Living people Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Knights Bachelor Alumni of Leeds Beckett University People from Keighley UK MPs 1992–1997 UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 UK MPs 2005–2010 UK MPs 2010–2015 UK MPs 2015–2017