Brian Mawhinney

Brian Stanley Mawhinney, Baron Mawhinney, (26 July 1940 – 9 November 2019) was a British Conservative Party politician. He was a member of the Cabinet from 1994 to 1997 and a member of Parliament (MP) from 1979 to 2005.

Early life

Mawhinney was born on 26 July 1940 in Belfast, son of Frederick Stanley Arnot Mawhinney and Coralie Anita Jean (née Wilkinson). His family was heavily involved with an Open Brethren church. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, and studied physics at Queen's University Belfast,

Mawhinney was a social conservative who opposed abortion and Sunday trading. He also campaigned prolifically against pornography: he introduced a private member's bill in 1979 to ban indecent images and posters outside cinemas, sex shops and strip clubs, and in early 1980, he called for Keith Joseph to launch an inquiry into a page on the Post Office's Prestel viewdata service, called "A Buyer's Guide to Dirty Books".

In Government

He was PPS to John Wakeham from 1982 to 1983, and PPS to Tom King from 1984 to 1986. he entered the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Transport that year.

In Opposition

He served as Shadow Home Secretary and spokesman for home, constitutional and legal affairs for a year under William Hague before returning to the back benches in June 1998.

House of Lords

On 13 May 2005 it was announced that he would be created a life peer in the 2005 Dissolution Honours, and on 24 June he was created Baron Mawhinney, of Peterborough, in the County of Cambridgeshire.

Lord Mawhinney questioned the priority David Cameron had given to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, stating that it was a distraction.

He took leave of absence from the House of Lords in October 2017 for health reasons.

Outside politics

In 2003, he was appointed chairman of The Football League, and in 2004 oversaw a re-organisation of the league structure, renaming the former Division One as the Football League Championship. Deeply religious, Mawhinney was a leading member of the Conservative Christian Fellowship as well as a member of the Church of England General Synod for five years. Mawhinney was also a patron of Peterborough United until his death in November 2019.

Personal life and death

In 1964, Mawhinney married Betty Oja, an American citizen whom he met during his time in Michigan; the couple had three children. He wrote two autobiographies: In the Firing Line (1999) and Just a Simple Belfast Boy (2013).

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