Nick Gibb - Political Career

Political Career

Gibb worked as an election agent to Cecil Parkinson at the 1987 General Election, and becoming the secretary of the Bethnal Green and Stepney Conservative Association in 1988, becoming its chairman the following year.

Gibb contested Stoke-on-Trent Central at the 1992 General Election but was defeated into second place some 13,420 votes behind the sitting Labour MP Mark Fisher. In 1994, Gibb was selected to contest the 1994 Rotherham by-election, caused by the death of James Boyce, held on 5 May 1994. He finished in third place, 12,263 votes behind the winner Denis MacShane.

Gibb was selected to stand as the Conservative candidate for the newly created West Sussex seat of Bognor Regis and Littlehampton at the 1997 General Election. Gibb won the seat with a majority of 7,321 and has remained the MP there since. He made his maiden speech on 4 July 1997, in which he spoke of the visit of King George V in 1929 to Bognor Regis to take in the sea air, hence the suffix of Regis on the town's name. He recalled also the town of Felpham which was the home of poet William Blake.