Graham Page

Page was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and the University of London and later became a solicitor. He was a Privy Council appeal agent and a company and building society director.

Page contested Islington North in 1950 and 1951 was first elected Member of Parliament at a by-election in 1953, for Crosby. He chaired the Select committee on Statutory Instruments from 1964 to 1966. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1972 and was a Minister of State at the Secretary of State for the Department of Local Government and Development until 1974, when the Conservative Government lost the February 1974 general election. He took a particular interest in government administration and played a significant part in the reorganisation of local government and water authorities in the early 1970s. When he was re-elected for the second time in 1974, he had a majority of over 19,000 votes.

Page won his last general election victory at the 1979 general election. He died in office in 1981 and was replaced in parliament by the first Social Democratic Party member to be elected, the former Labour Education Minister Shirley Williams.

With W.J. Leaper, Page wrote a book called Rent Act 1965 in 1966. He corresponded with Winston Churchill and Enoch Powell. He was a governor of St. Thomas's Hospital, London, and the chairman of the Pedestrians' Association.

Page's death, aged 70, caused a high-profile by-election in which Shirley Williams became the first Social Democratic Party MP to be elected in Britain. It was a shock result which overturned a 19,272 Conservative majority Sir Graham had won in 1979. However, the Conservatives regained the seat in 1983.

• Times Guide to the House of Commons, 1966, 1979 and 1983 editions
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages

• Photo, from Switch Designs Ltd

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Graham Page