Tobias Ellwood

Tobias Martin Ellwood (born 12 August 1966) is a British Conservative Party politician and soldier who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bournemouth East since 2005.

He transferred to the Army Reserve and has gone on to reach the rank of lieutenant colonel in the 77th Brigade.

Born in New York to British parents, Ellwood was educated at schools in Bonn and Vienna, where he attended the fee-paying Vienna International School.

He attended Loughborough University from 1985 to 1990, and became a sabbatical officer at Loughborough Students' Union.

While a member of the University Officers' Training Corps (UOTC), Ellwood was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Territorial Army in 1989.

After completing the Regular Army commissioning course at Sandhurst he joined the Royal Green Jackets in 1991, and transferred from the active list to the Reserve of Officers in 1996 having reached the rank of captain.

After leaving the Regular Army he became a researcher to the Conservative MP Tom King.

He graduated with a bachelor's degree and later attended the Cass Business School at City University from 1997 to 1998 where he received a Master of Business Administration degree (MBA).

He was elected chairman of the Hertfordshire South West Conservative Association for a year in 1998.

Ellwood was elected as a councillor on Dacorum Borough Council in Hertfordshire in 1999.

At the 2001 general election he stood for election in Worsley, being defeated by the sitting Labour MP Terry Lewis by 11,787 votes and winning 23.8% of the vote.

He was selected to contest the safe Conservative seat of Bournemouth East to succeed David Atkinson.

He was elected at the 2005 general election with a majority of 5,244 votes and with 45% of the vote.

A supporter of David Cameron's campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Ellwood was appointed to the Opposition Whips Office in December 2005.

In the July 2007 reshuffle, Cameron promoted Ellwood to his frontbench team as Shadow Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, with specific responsibilities for gambling, licensing and tourism.

He was criticised in the press after reportedly describing Liverpudlian landlords taking over pubs in his constituency as "criminals" in 2009; Ellwood said the comments had been taken out of context.

Ellwood was re-elected at the 2010 general election with an increased vote share of 48.4% and an increased majority of 7,728.

Following the election he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to then Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, and in October 2011 was appointed PPS to David Lidington, Minister for Europe at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

In 2011, Ellwood served on the Special Select Committee set up to scrutinise the Bill which became the Armed Forces Act 2011.

In October 2013, Ellwood was appointed PPS to Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

On 15 July 2014, Ellwood was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Middle East, Africa and FCO Services.

Ellwood has also been appointed a Member of the Parliamentary Delegation to the NATO Assembly, 2014 and Parliamentary Advisor to the Prime Minister for the 2014 NATO Summit.

He is a proponent of "double summer time".

He was also a member of the Public Bill Committee for the Defence Reform Act 2014.

In May 2014 he was one of seven unsuccessful candidates for the chairmanship of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee.

In 2015, he backed the move by IPSA to increase salaries for politicians by 10% when the rest of the public sector were on a freeze of 1%.

He apologised for any offence caused by the comment that without the proposed raise to his £90,000 salary he would be "watching the pennies" but also reminded people that he had taken a salary cut when becoming an MP.

At the 2015 general election Ellwood was re-elected with an increased vote share of 49% and an increased majority of 14,612.

In September 2015, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority named Ellwood and 25 current and former MPs who failed to settle a total of approximately £2,000 the previous year in overclaimed expenses, forcing them to be written off.

The debts ranged from £309 to £7.50.

The expenses claim that Ellwood had submitted of £26.50 was subsequently settled.

Ellwood voted to remain in the 2016 EU referendum.

He later stated that the leave result should nevertheless be respected and that the government should not try to reverse this decision.

On 22 March 2017, during a terrorist attack on Parliament, Ellwood gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR to police officer Keith Palmer, who later died of his injuries.

Ellwood was called a "hero" by those at Westminster and the press, as photos surfaced of him with blood on his face while he crouched over the body of the dying police officer.

Consequently, Ellwood received a lot of praise on social media for his actions, as well as being promised an appointment to the Privy Council for his response in the attack.

Ellwood's appointment to the Privy Council was formally approved on 12 April 2017.

Ellwood was again re-elected at the snap 2017 general election with an increased vote share of 51.9% and a decreased majority of 7,937.

He chaired the Defence Select Committee from 2020 to 2023, and was Minister for Defence Veterans, Reserves and Personnel at the Ministry of Defence from 2017 to 2019.

Prior to his political career, Ellwood served in the Royal Green Jackets and reached the rank of captain.