Peter Rees, Baron Rees

Peter Wynford Innes Rees, Baron Rees PC, QC (born December 9, 1926) is a British politician. He was Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Dover and Deal from 1974 to 1983 and MP for Dover from 1970 to 1974 and 1983 to 1987. He was Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1983 until 1985.

Rees was educated at Stowe and Christ Church, Oxford, where he took a degree in history. After National Service with the Scots Guards from 1945 to 1948, he was called to the bar in 1953 at the Inner Temple, and became a QC in 1969.

Political career

At the 1964 general election Rees stood as the Conservative candidate in the safe Labour seat of Abertillery, where he won only 14% of the votes, against the 86% won by the only other candidate, Labour's Reverend Llewellyn Williams. [http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/ge64/i01.htm] When Williams died in 1965, Rees was the Conservative candidate in the consequent by-election, losing by a similarly large margin. [http://www.geocities.com/by_elections/65.html#abertillery]

At the 1966 election, he stood in the more promising Labour-held seat of Liverpool West Derby, but lost again.

He finally entered Parliament at the 1970 general election, when he won in Dover, with a majority of 1,649 over sitting Labour MP David Ennals.

Parliament

In Edward Heath's government, he served from 1972 to 1973 as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Solicitor General, Michael Havers.

In 1979, when the Conservative Party entered government under Margaret Thatcher, he became Minister of State at the Treasury, working to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Geoffrey Howe, before becoming Minister for Trade in 1981. After the 1983 UK general election he was appointed to the cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, working to the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson. He was made Privy Counsellor the same year.

Unlike most other Chief Secretaries to the Treasury, Peter Rees never went further within the Cabinet, leaving the post in the September 1985 cabinet reshuffle. He retired from Parliament at the 1987 general election, aged 61, and was made a life peer as Baron Rees, of Goytre in the County of Gwent and sits in the House of Lords as a Conservative.

Offices held