Member of Parliament and In Government
After unsuccessfully contesting the Isle of Wight in the 1983 General Election (34,904 votes), she was elected to Parliament with 21,545 votes in a by-election in 1984 (filling the seat left vacant by the death of Maurice Macmillan, son of former prime minister Harold Macmillan), as the Member for South West Surrey, was PPS to Chris Patten and then to Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, received her first ministerial position in 1988 as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department of the Environment and was appointed Minister of State at the Department of Health in 1989. She was appointed a member of the Privy Council (PC) upon joining John Major's Cabinet as Secretary of State for Health in 1992 and served until 1995.
She then served as Secretary of State for National Heritage from 1995 to 1997. After the 1997 general election, she returned to the backbenches, also becoming a headhunter in the charity and public sectors, now also leading the Odgers Board practice.
Read more about this topic: Virginia Bottomley
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