Robert Syms

Syms was born in Chippenham in 1956 and educated at Colston's School.[2][3] He was leader of North Wiltshire District Council from 1984 to 1987 and a Wiltshire County Councillor from 1985 to 1997.[2] He was managing director of his family's plant hire firm in Bristol Road in Chippenham and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building.[2][3]

He retains a directorship and shareholding in Marden Holdings Ltd headquartered in Bristol Road, Chippenham.[4]

He contested Walsall North in 1992, but was first elected to the House of Commons as MP for Poole in the 1997 general election.[5]

Syms served on opposition front bench from 1998 to 2007.[5] He was shadow spokesman for environment, transport and the regions between 1999 and 2001, an opposition whip for a few months in 2003, and shadow minister in the office of the deputy Prime Minister and for communities and local government between 2003 and 2007.[3][5] He was also vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party between 2001 and 2002.[3]

Syms was an Assistant Whip for the Coalition government between 2012 and 2013.[5] He has served on a variety of Select Committees, acting as Chair of the Regulatory Reform select committee from July 2010 to September 2012 and the High Speed Rail select committee from April 2014 to February 2016.[5]

Syms organised a letter signed by more than 80 fellow Eurosceptic Conservative MPs urging David Cameron to continue as Prime Minister regardless of the result of the EU referendum in 2016.[6] He backed Theresa May's leadership bid following Cameron's resignation,[7] and was appointed as a Government Whip and Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury upon May's succession.[8]

In 2009, Syms was at the centre of an expenses scandal after he claimed more than £2,000 for furniture to be moved to his parents' address in Wiltshire.[9] He was also forced to defend using his expense account to employ his wife and ex-wife.[10]

In 2015, Syms was criticised by the local press and other candidates for failing to attend hustings for the 2015 general election and spending more time campaigning in Mid Dorset and North Poole with Michael Tomlinson than Poole due to Poole's status as a safe seat.[11]

In 2017, Syms was criticised for name calling on Twitter. Four years earlier, his wife announced on Twitter that he had been dismissed from his job as a whip over the phone.[12] He replied to a tweet calling the Conservative-DUP deal after the 2017 general election a "coalition", by calling him a "dick".[13]

In 2020, Syms became a "lockdown rebel" and a steering committee member of the lockdown-sceptic COVID Recovery Group alongside a group of Conservative MPs who opposed the UK government's December 2020 lockdown.[14] They have been seen as an "echo" of the Brexiteer European Research Group (ERG) of MPs, and a response by backbench Conservatives to Nigel Farage's anti-lockdown Reform UK party.[14]

According to parliamentary monitoring website, TheyWorkForYou, Syms has voted the same way as other Conservative MPs on the vast majority of issues. As of December 2020, his voting record shows the following trends:[15]

• generally against laws to promote equality and human rights.
• generally against equal gay rights.
• almost always against UK membership of the EU.
• almost always against a right to remain for EU nationals already in living in the UK.
• consistently for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits.
• consistently for raising the threshold at which people start to pay income tax.
• consistently against increasing the tax rate applied to income over £150,000.
• almost always for more restrictive regulation of trade union activity.
• consistently for reducing the rate of corporation tax.
• consistently for reforming the NHS so GPs buy services on behalf of their patients.
• almost always for a stricter asylum system.
• consistently for tougher immigration rules.
• consistently for mass surveillance of mass communications and activities.

He is divorced and has two teenage children.[16][3]

• 1989 Wiltshire County Council election
• 1993 Wiltshire County Council election

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert Syms.

• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Poole Conservatives