Heather Wheeler

Heather Kay Wheeler (born 14 May 1959) is a British Conservative Party politician, who was elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Derbyshire, taking the seat from the Labour Party after 13 years.

Wheeler was brought up in Wandsworth and was elected a Conservative member of Wandsworth London Borough Council at the age of 22. After serving a full council term she married her husband Bob, moving in 1986 to Bretby, south Derbyshire.

After working for Lloyds insurance brokers for 10 years, she joined The Chartered Insurance Institute as an Associate.

Wheeler was elected to South Derbyshire District Council in 1995 and became leader of the Conservative group on the council. During this time she stood unsuccessfully at the 2001 and 2005 general elections as her party's candidate for Coventry South. Following her election as a Member of Parliament she stood aside as Conservative council group leader; she continued briefly as district councillor for Repton, but did not seek re-election when her term ended in 2011.

Her husband Bob is the current leader of South Derbyshire District Council. Their daughter Harriet was a council candidate in the 2011 local elections but was unsuccessful.

Wheeler was a member of the Conservative Party's A-List prior to being selected to contest the South Derbyshire constituency. At the 2010 general election she won with a majority of 7,128; there was a 9.8% swing to the Conservatives.

In the House of Commons she sat on the Standards and Privileges Committee and the Communities and Local Government Committee.

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

Wheeler was one of 79 Conservative MPs who supported a 2011 rebel motion calling for a referendum on the European Union. She also joined a 2013 rebel amendment expressing regret at not including the referendum in the government's plans. She subsequently backed the government's plans to hold a referendum in 2017 and opposed a proposal to hold it in 2014.

In August 2016, following the 2016 Rio Olympics, the EU shared a modified medals table showing its combined member states in first place. In what she later described as a "tongue-in-cheek pop", Wheeler then tweeted that the British Empire had won the 2016 Rio Olympics along with a map of former imperial territories.