Flick Drummond
MP
Official portrait, 2019
Member of Parliament
for Meon Valley
Assumed office
12 December 2019
Preceded byGeorge Hollingbery
Majority23,555 (43.0%)
Member of Parliament
for Portsmouth South
In office
7 May 2015 – 3 May 2017
Preceded byMike Hancock
Succeeded byStephen Morgan
Personal details
Born
Felicia Jane Beatrix Shepherd[1]

(1962-06-16) 16 June 1962[2]
Aden, Aden Protectorate
(now Yemen)
Political partyConservative
SpouseHereward John Heneage Drummond
Children4
EducationRoedean School, East Sussex
Alma materUniversity of Hull
University of Southampton
Websitewww.flickdrummond.com
Military service
Allegiance United Kingdom
Branch/serviceTerritorial Army
Intelligence Corps

Felicia Jane "Flick" Beatrix Drummond[3] (née Shepherd; born 16 June 1962) is a British Conservative Party politician. She has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Meon Valley since 2019, having previously represented Portsmouth South from 2015 to 2017.

Early life

Drummond is the daughter of diplomat George Anthony Shepherd (1931-1996), CMG of Meonstoke, Hampshire, who had served in the 4th Royal Tank Regiment, Trucial Oman Scouts, and 2nd Royal Tank Regiment,[4] and Sarah Eirlys, née Adamson.[5]

Political career

Drummond sat on Winchester City Council from 1996 to 2000, before being expelled from the council after failing to attend a meeting for six months.[6] During this time, she moved to the United States.

Having returned in 2004, Drummond was selected to stand for Parliament in Southampton Itchen in 2005, coming second to Labour's John Denham, and in Portsmouth South in 2010, coming second to Mike Hancock of the Liberal Democrats.

At the 2015 general election, Drummond contested Portsmouth South again, winning with a majority of 5,241 over the Liberal Democrats' Gerald Vernon-Jackson, while Hancock (having resigned from the Liberal Democrats) ran as an Independent and finished sixth. During the 2015 Parliament Drummond was a member of the Women and Equalities Select Committee. With Jess Phillips, she set up the Women and Work APPG which she currently co-chairs.

Drummond campaigned to remain in the European Union in the 2016 Referendum.[7] She stated in 2016 that the referendum result diminished and would lessen Britain's influence in Europe.[8]

At the 2017 general election, Drummond was defeated in Portsmouth South by Labour's Stephen Morgan, one of thirty net gains by the Labour Party.

In October 2018, Drummond was elected Voluntary Director of the Conservative Policy Forum by the National Conservative Convention. In November 2019, Drummond was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for the safe Conservative seat of Meon Valley in Hampshire, to replace the retiring incumbent George Hollingbery. At the December 2019 general election, she won Meon Valley with 64.3% of the vote. As a consequence she stood down as the Conservative candidate for Hampshire at the 2020 England and Wales police and crime commissioner elections.[9]

Between February and September 2020 Drummond served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Anne-Marie Trevelyan as Secretary of State for International Development[10] before becoming PPS to Thérèse Coffey at the Department for Work and Pensions.[11] Since January 2021, Drummond has served as one of two vice-chairwomen of the Conservative European Forum, which replaced the Conservative Group for Europe. The group calls for close, strategic relationships with Europe, advocating for a close relationship with European institutions. In October 2022, Drummond was appointed to the Commons Public Accounts Committee and the Education Select Committee. She is currently Chair of APPGs on Wine of Great Britain, Women and Work, and Women, Peace and Security, as well as co-chair of the APPG on Yemen.

Under the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, her Meon Valley constituency is set to be dissolved and its territory divided between several new or revised constituencies. On 5 April, she faced a vote of local party members to become the candidate for the new seat of Fareham and Waterlooville, which takes in the majority of the current Meon Valley constituency; her opponent was Fareham MP and then Home Secretary Suella Braverman.[12] Braverman won the vote by 77 votes to 54.

In July 2023, Drummond was selected to contest the next general election as the Conservative candidate for the neighbouring Winchester constituency, which will have its boundaries changed to include slightly less than a quarter of Meon Valley.[13][14]

Interests

Flick Drummond is particularly interested in education policy and foreign affairs, in particular the Middle East.[15] Drummond is a graduate of the Royal College of Defence Studies and has completed two terms on the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme.

Personal life

In 1987, she married Heneage Drummond, a descendant of the Jacobite soldier William Drummond, 4th Viscount Strathallan, of the family of the Earls of Perth. They have four children and three grandchildren.[16] Before entering politics Drummond was a lay inspector for Ofsted. Drummond has also served as Chair of Governors at Milton Park Primary School and a trustee of Salterns Academy Trust in Portsmouth. Drummond was Chair of the Winchester and District NCT 1990-1993 and sat on the Winchester and District Community Health Council from 1991-1999.

Publications

  • No Blame Game - The Future for Children's Social Workers for the Conservative Party Commission on Social Workers (October 2007)
  • Women Returners, Annual report for Women and Work APPG (2016)
  • Brexit and Beyond edited by George Freeman MP – chapter on Coastal Communities (2019)
  • The Future of Education, One Nation Conservatives (2020)

References

  1. ↑ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 3, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 3107
  2. ↑ Dale, Iain; Smith, Jacqui (2019). The Honourable Ladies : Volume II: Profiles of Women MPs 1997-2019. La Vergne: Biteback Publishing. ISBN 9781785904479.
  3. ↑ "No. 61230". The London Gazette. 18 May 2015. pp. 9124–9125.
  4. ↑ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 3, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 3107
  5. ↑ Who was Who, St Martin's Press, 1996, p. 527
  6. ↑ "Gearing up for a good, clean fight". Daily Echo. 19 April 2000. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
  7. ↑ Goodenough, Tom (16 February 2016). "Which Tory MPs back Brexit, who doesn't and who is still on the fence?". The Spectator. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
  8. ↑ Elgot, Jessica; Mason, Rowena (2 October 2016). "Don't trust Brexit 'three blind mice', says Tory former minister". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
  9. ↑ "New MP Flick Drummond stands down as Tory PCC candidate". Hampshire Chronicle. 3 January 2020. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  10. ↑ "Flick appointed PPS". Conservative and Unionist Party. 25 February 2020. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
  11. ↑ "Flick joins Department for Work and Pensions". Conservative and Unionist Party. 22 February 2023. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
  12. ↑ Atkinson, William (28 February 2023). "Braverman, Drummond, and Fareham. The Home Secretary is not the local champion that some party members are looking for". Conservative Home. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  13. ↑ "Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?". House of Commons Library. Retrieved 14 November 2023.
  14. ↑ "Conservatives choose candidate for the next General Election". Hampshire Chronicle. 21 July 2023. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  15. ↑ "About Flick Drummond MP". Flick Drummond. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  16. ↑ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 3, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 3107
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