John Maples

John Cradock Maples was born at Fareham, Hampshire. His father, a businessman, lived in the Wirral; he was educated at Marlborough College, before going up to Downing College, Cambridge, where he read law, and played hockey for the college and performed with the Footlights. Maples received an MA in 1964, and later studied at the Harvard Business School. He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1965.{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9327465/Lord-Maples.html |title=Lord Maples |date=12 June 2012 |work=The Telegraph |access-date=14 June 2012 |location=London}}

In the 1960s, Maples founded the Cayman Islands law firm of Maples and Calder with James MacDonald and Douglas Calder.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}}

Maples was the MP for Lewisham West from 1983, until he lost the seat at the 1992 general election. His business background attracted him to the Treasury benches: Margaret Thatcher appointed him Parliamentary Private Secretary to Norman Lamont, then Economic Secretary to the Treasury. On Nigel Lawson's resignation in 1989, Lamont was made Chief Secretary to the Treasury, with Maples moving up to take Lamont's former role. During his time as Economic Secretary from 1989 to 1990, Maples was instrumental in working with David Cameron on the policy to enter the Exchange Rate Mechanism, with the pound sterling pegged designed to track the German deutschmark. In 1990, Maples had been appointed as Economic Secretary before the change of Prime Ministers. He dealt with the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) case. The Arab bank was based in London, and fell prey to the subsequent Arms to Iraq scandals and collapsed, bankrupting its depositors. He was also responsible for monitoring the Bank of England's monetary policy, which included bank regulation.

At the 1992 general election he lost the Lewisham seat to Labour. He returned to the House of Commons at the following general election, in 1997; in the interim he was Chairman of Saatchi and Saatchi, the advertising and lobbying group, which had supported Thatcher.

In 1995, after Stratford-upon-Avon MP Alan Howarth defected to Labour, Maples won the selection battle to replace him as Conservative candidate for the constituency, defeating local resident Maureen Hicks, former MP for Wolverhampton North East, who had likewise lost her seat in 1992. Maples went on to be elected for the seat, which was one of the Conservatives' safest, in 1997. He was re-elected in both the 2001 and 2005 general elections.

Maples was a member of William Hague's shadow cabinet from 1997 to 2000, holding the Health, Defence and Foreign Policy briefs in succession. While Shadow Foreign Secretary, he was caught apparently calling for Britain to help Vladimir Putin in the Second Chechen War,{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/587923.stm |title=Tories: Help Russia win in Chechnya |work=BBC News Online |date=2 January 2000}} by saying that "because there is nothing we can do about it anyway."cited in Hansard reports of Parliamentary Debates; Daily Telegraph, 13 June 2012, p.27.

In the reshuffle prompted by the return of Michael Portillo to the front bench, he lost his job to Francis Maude and left the shadow cabinet. Maples had been widely believed to be one of the main "plotters" behind the downfall of then Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith.{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3223461.stm |title = View from the grassroots |access-date=23 January 2009 |date=29 October 2003 |work=BBC Online}}

He returned to front bench politics in a minor reshuffle in November 2006, when David Cameron appointed him Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party with responsibility for candidate selection. He replaced ex-shadow cabinet minister Bernard Jenkin. Because of Cameron's high-profile attempts to have more female and minority candidates selected, which met with some opposition from local parties, the post was seen as an important one. Maples was a Cameron loyalist, and elevated to the House of Lords in July 2010.The Daily Telegraph, 13 June 2012, p.27. While an MP, Maples was president of the Conservative Friends of Israel.Anthony Lawson, [http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/11/friends-of-israel-enemies-inside-the-gates/ Friends of Israel], 21 November 2010, at the 2:23 min mark.

In the 2009 MP's expenses scandal it emerged that Maples had claimed the Royal Automobile Club as his principal residence{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5319802/John-Maples-claims-Pall-Mall-club-as-main-home-MPs-expenses.html |title=John Maples claims Pall Mall club as main home: MPs' expenses |last=Prince |first=Rosa |date=14 May 2009 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|access-date=10 January 2010 |location=London}}{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5326337/John-Maples-fails-to-explain-as-main-home-row-grows-MPs-expenses.html |title=John Maples fails to explain as 'main home' row grows: MPs' expenses |last=Prince |first=Rosa |date=15 May 2009 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|access-date=10 January 2010 |location=London}} though according to his obituary he immediately denied any wrongdoing.

On 10 January 2010, Maples announced that he would stand down from the House of Commons at the general election which was held that May.{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8451455.stm|title=Deputy Tory chairman John Maples to step down as MP|work=BBC News Online|date=11 January 2010}}

On 24 June 2010, in the Dissolution Honours List, Maples was created a Life Peer as Baron Maples, of Stratford-upon-Avon in the County of Warwickshire.{{London gazette |issue=59474 |date=29 June 2010 |page=12259}}{{cite web|author=Department of the Official Report (Hansard), House of Lords, Westminster|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/100624-0001.htm#10062474000591|title=Lords Hansard text for 24 June 2010 (pt 0001)|publisher=Publications.parliament.uk|date=24 June 2010|access-date=11 June 2012}}

During a Lords debate on voting reform in November 2010, Lord Maples compared Lewisham West unfavourably with his other former constituency, Stratford-upon-Avon, stating that they "could not be more different". He claimed that Lewisham West was "three square miles of concrete", did not have an "identity", and that many of its constituents "did not know which borough they lived in". He added that Stratford-upon-Avon had a "very articulate" electorate and Lewisham West had "immigration and housing problems".{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8147729/Former-MP-for-Lewisham-describes-it-as-three-miles-of-concrete.html)|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230321215105/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8147729/Former-MP-for-Lewisham-describes-it-as-three-miles-of-concrete.html)|url-status=dead|archive-date=21 March 2023|location=London|title=Former MP for Lewisham describes it as 'three miles of concrete'|author= Andy Bloxham|work= The Daily Telegraph|date=20 November 2010|access-date=27 November 2014}} Lord Maples was working on the Financial Services Bill from the joint Parliamentary Finance Committee.Daily Telegraph, p.27

Maples married designer Lawry Kennedy (1946–1982), who was one of the first people to renovate early 1900s brick townhouses to help gentrify abandoned and rundown areas in Boston in the United States, and London in England. They married on the Rhode Island oceanfront in July 1976; she divorced him in July 1980. He married journalist Jane Corbin in December 1986 in Westminster. The couple had a son (Tom, b. 1989) and a daughter (Rose, b. 1992).

Maples died at the Harley Street Clinic in Weymouth Street, Westminster,{{Cite ODNB |last=Garnett |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Garnett |date=7 January 2016 |title=Maples, John Cradock, Baron Maples (1943–2012), barrister, politician, and businessman |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/105182}} on 9 June 2012 from cancer, aged 69; his death was announced in the Lords by Baroness D'Souza.{{cite news|date=11 June 2012|title=Former Conservative MP and minister John Maples dies aged 69|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18398445|access-date=11 June 2012}}

{{reflist}}

• [http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/0,9290,-3348,00.html Guardian Unlimited Politics – Ask Aristotle: John Maples MP]
• [https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/john_maples/stratford-on-avon TheyWorkForYou.com – John Maples MP]
• {{Hansard-contribs | mr-john-maples | John Maples }}
• [http://www.bbc.co.uk/otr/intext/19991214_int_1.html Interview on On The Record in December 1999]
• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/mpdb/html/548.stm BBC Politics page] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060525041822/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/mpdb/html/548.stm |date=25 May 2006 }}
• {{C-SPAN|22105}}

• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/466221.stm Speech at 1999 Conservative conference]
• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/404463.stm Answering questions on BBC News Online in July 1999]

{{s-start}}

{{s-par|uk}}

{{s-bef|before=Christopher Price}}

{{s-ttl|title=Member of Parliament for Lewisham West|years=1983–1992}}

{{s-aft|after=Jim Dowd}}

|-

{{s-bef|before=Alan Howarth}}

{{s-ttl|title=Member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon|years=1997–2010}}

{{s-aft|after=Nadhim Zahawi}}

|-

{{s-off}}

{{s-bef|before=Richard Ryder}}

{{s-ttl|title=Economic Secretary to the Treasury|years=1989–1992}}

{{s-aft|after=Anthony Nelson}}

|-

{{s-bef|before=Stephen Dorrell}}

{{s-ttl|title=Shadow Secretary of State for Health|years=1997–1998}}

{{s-aft|after=Ann Widdecombe}}

|-

{{s-bef|before=George Young}}

{{s-ttl|title=Shadow Secretary of State for Defence|years=1998–1999}}

{{s-aft|after=Iain Duncan Smith}}

|-

{{s-bef|before=Michael Howard}}

{{s-ttl|title=Shadow Foreign Secretary|years=1999–2000}}

{{s-aft|after=Francis Maude}}

{{s-end}}

{{Shadow Defence Secretaries}}

{{Shadow Foreign Secretaries}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maples, John}}

Category:1943 births

Category:2012 deaths

Category:Alumni of Downing College, Cambridge

Category:Deaths from cancer in England

Category:Conservative Party (UK) life peers

Category:Life peers created by Elizabeth II

Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies

Category:English barristers

Category:Harvard Business School alumni

Category:Members of the Inner Temple

Category:People educated at Marlborough College

Category:People from Fareham

Category:UK MPs 1983–1987

Category:UK MPs 1987–1992

Category:UK MPs 1997–2001

Category:UK MPs 2001–2005

Category:UK MPs 2005–2010