1. Peter Michael Ainsworth was a British Conservative politician who served as Member of Parliament for East Surrey from 1992 to 2010.
22 Facts About Peter Ainsworth
1. 2.
Peter Ainsworth was educated at the Ludgrove School in Wokingham, at Bradfield College in Berkshire, and Lincoln College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1979 with an MA in English Literature and Language.
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From 1984 to 1986, Peter Ainsworth was a Member of the Council at the Bow Group, a conservative think tank.
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Peter Ainsworth was elected as a councillor to the London Borough of Wandsworth in 1986, and at the 1992 general election, was elected to Parliament for the safe Conservative seat of East Surrey, succeeding Geoffrey Howe.
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In 1994, Peter Ainsworth became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Jonathan Aitken, and in 1995 became PPS to the Secretary of State for National Heritage, Virginia Bottomley.
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Peter Ainsworth was promoted by John Major in 1996 to the Whips' Office.
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On 5 January 2010, Peter Ainsworth announced that he was to stand down at the forthcoming general election.
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Peter Ainsworth resigned from Iain Duncan Smith's frontbench for family reasons in 2002.
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Peter Ainsworth lost his position in the Shadow Cabinet in the January 2009 reshuffle when Nick Herbert took the post of Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
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From 2009 to 2010, Peter Ainsworth was chairman of the Conservative Arts and Creative Industries Network, and from 2010 to 2012, he was chairman of the Conservative Environment Network.
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In 2005, Peter Ainsworth became chairman of the Elgar Foundation, a role he held until 2013.
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Peter Ainsworth was a Founder Partner of the Robertsbridge Group, a sustainability consultancy, in 2010, and from 2013 to 2016, he was a trustee of the Elgar Foundation.
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In June 2011, following his departure from Parliament, Peter Ainsworth was appointed chairman of the Big Lottery Fund.
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Peter Ainsworth was a board member of the Environment Agency from 2012 to 2018, and from 2014 to 2016, he was a member of the London Sustainable Development Commission.
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Peter Ainsworth was chairman of the Churches Conservation Trust from 2016 until he died in 2021.
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Peter Ainsworth was a Member of the Board for the wild-plant charity Plantlife from 2003 onwards, becoming chairman from 2010 to 2015.
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Peter Ainsworth was a member of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Friends of the Earth and the Surrey Wildlife Trust.
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Peter Ainsworth was vice-president of the Arthur Bliss Society and a Surrey Campaign to Protect Rural England trustee from 2010 to 2011.
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Peter Ainsworth was made an honorary fellow of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management in 2010 and the Society for the Environment in 2013.
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Peter Ainsworth married Claire Alison Burnett in Hatfield in 1981, with whom he had a son, Benny Peter Ainsworth, who became an actor, and two daughters.
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Peter Ainsworth was a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club and the Garrick Club.
22.
Peter Ainsworth died in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, of a heart attack, on 6 April 2021, aged 64.