A WORCESTERSHIRE MP is to be knighted for more than two decades of public and political service.

The Mid Worcestershire MP, Peter Luff, has been made 'Sir Peter' in the New Year Honours list.

The 58-year-old, who will stand down ahead of the 2015 general election, said the knighthood was an "honour".

"I was very surprised and it is a wonderful end to my political career, the icing on the cake of a great time in politics," he said.

"This is an honour I share with my constituents as, without the confidence they have shown in me, I would not have got this.

"I am very grateful to all the people who have supported me so long and I want to share this with them.

"Without the enormous support of my wife, it would not have happened at all.

"It is an honour.”

The citation from the Cabinet Office read: “He was a scrupulously non-partisan chair of two select committees and has also served as a Parliamentary private secretary (in three departments), Parliamentary under secretary of state and a whip.

"He is co-chair of the speakers’ advisory committee on the 2015 anniversaries. He is a long-standing campaigner for British engineering, with an emphasis on the need for more young people to train as engineers and scientists.

"He supports numerous charitable organisations in his constituency."

Mr Luff is deputy chairman of the speakers’ advisory committee on the 2015 anniversaries, established to mark the 750th anniversary of the Simon De Montfort Parliament in 1265 and the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta in 1215, both of which played a pivotal role in freedom and democracy across the country.

Both anniversaries also have strong connections to Worcestershire - with King John, who signed the Magna Carta, is buried in Worcester Cathedral while Simon De Monfort died at the Battle of Evesham.

He said his wife Julia, also his secretary, and children, Rosie, 28, and Oliver, 25, were all thrilled he is to be knighted.

Mr Luff was first elected as MP for Worcester in 1992 and then for the new Mid Worcestershire seat in 1997.

He was educated at Windsor Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he read economics.

He worked from 1977 to 1980 for the late Lord Walker who was then MP for Worcester.

He went on to be head of private office to the former Prime Minister, the late Sir Edward Heath, in the early 1980s.

In 1997, Mr Luff was appointed chairman of the Commons agriculture committee. In 2000, he joined the frontbench as an opposition whip, serving as assistant chief whip from 2002 to 2005.

He was appointed chairman of the business, innovation and skills committee and its predecessors after the 2005 election and retained the post until the election in 2010.

From May 2010 to September 2012 he served as minister for defence equipment, support and technology.

He is president of Evesham and Pershore Mind and took on the role in June 2010, a patron of the county ME support group and was chairman of the Worcester Cathedral Council for six years.


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