Bill Cash

Sir William Nigel Paul Cash (born 10 May 1940) is a British politician who has served as a member of Parliament (MP) since 1984.

Stone was a then newly (re-)created constituency, the previous version of which (with slightly different boundaries) had been abolished in 1950.

He has been chairman of various parliamentary committees.

Cash married Bridget Mary (née Lee) at Wardour Castle Chapel in Wiltshire on 16 October 1965, and they have two sons and a daughter.

His son is the journalist William Cash.

He qualified as a solicitor in 1967, and since 1979 has practised as a solicitor on his own account (i.e. he is neither employed by a law firm nor is he a member of a partnership).

Along with his wife, Bill Cash restored the now Grade I Upton Cressett Hall in the 1970s.

Cash entered Parliament in 1984, when he was elected as MP for Stafford at a by-election in May following the death of Sir Hugh Fraser.

Cash was elected chairman of the Conservative Backbench Committee on European Affairs (1989–91).

In June 2023, he was one of six Conservative MPs to vote against censuring Boris Johnson following the Commons Privileges Committee investigation.

(By contrast, 354 MPs voted to approve the Committee's report).

Cash is chairman of a number of All-Party African committees, including those on Kenya and Uganda.

He is also chairman of the All-Party Committee on Malaysia.

Cash was the founder of the Maastricht Referendum Campaign in the early 1990s, and is now the elected Chair of the House of Commons' European Scrutiny Committee.

He has also served as a vice-president of the Eurosceptic pressure group Conservatives for Britain, and to this day is one of the strongest critics of the European Union from the Conservative Party.

In June 2023, he announced his intention to stand down at the next general election.

The 'Maastricht Rebellion' took place in the early 1990s, and reached its height in 1993.

MPs belonging to the governing Conservative Party refused to support the government of John Major in the votes in the House of Commons on the issue of the implementation of the Maastricht Treaty (Treaty on European Union) in British law.

It was a major event of John Major's troubled second term as Prime Minister (1992–1997).

Major's party had a small majority, thus giving the relatively small number of rebels great influence: for example, there were 22 rebels on the second reading of the European Communities (Amendment) Bill in May 1992, and the government's majority at the time was only 18.

A member of the Conservative Party, he was first elected for Stafford and then for Stone in Staffordshire in 1997.

Cash is a prominent Eurosceptic.

Since the 1997 election he has been MP for Stone, Staffordshire.

He has also served as chairman on the All-Party Group for the Jubilee 2000 (1997–2000).

He is chairman of the All-Party Sanitation and Water Committee (Third World) in which he works closely with Wateraid and Tearfund.

He was elected unopposed as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee on 8 September 2010, and has been a member of the Select Committee on European Legislation since 1985.

The Hall was subsequently voted the 'Best Hidden Gem' heritage destination in the UK at the 2011 Hudson's Heritage awards.

He is a distant cousin of the American country musician and singer Johnny Cash.

He introduced the Gender Equality (International Development) Bill, 2013, which, although only 18th in the Private Members Ballot, was enacted in March 2014.

Mariella Frostrup wrote in The Times, "The new law that puts gender equality at the heart of our overseas aid policy will be as historic as the Slave Trade Act."

Justine Greening, Secretary of State for International Development, wrote in The Telegraph blog "Yet for assiduously steering his Gender Equality in International Development Bill through Parliament over recent months, Bill Cash deserves the recognition of women everywhere. … It's also a proud legacy for a Parliamentary champion of women's rights [..] Bill Cash."

The day after the Act came into force, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, told Cash in the House of Commons, "I am sure the whole House will want to join me in commending my hon. Friend on his Bill, and on his legislative achievement to get that important measure on the statute book."

Cash is known as a strong Eurosceptic.

He has been described by Kenneth Clarke as the most "Eurosceptic" Member of Parliament.

In the book by historian Robert Blake titled The Conservative Party: from Peel to Major, Cash is described as the leader of the Eurosceptics during the Maastricht Rebellion and as being "indefatigable... a constitutional lawyer of great expertise".

Cash was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2014 Birthday Honours for political services.

He was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in Boris Johnson's resignation honours.

Cash was born in Finsbury, London, to a political family, which included seven Liberal Members of Parliament, including John Bright.

Cash grew up in Sheffield and was educated at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire before attending Lincoln College, Oxford, where he took an BA in History.

Following his tenth election victory in the 2019 general election, aged 79, Cash became the oldest sitting member of the House of Commons.