Justin Tomlinson

Justin Paul Tomlinson (born 5 November 1976) is the Conservative parliamentary candidate for North Swindon. He was originally a Conservative Councillor on Swindon Borough Council, being elected in 2000. He is the current Member of Parliament for Swindon North. He was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Disabled People following the 2015 general election victory of the Conservative Party, serving until new Prime Minister Theresa May reshuffled the government in 2016. Prior to that he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Ed Vaizey

Tomlinson was educated at Harry Cheshire High School, a state comprehensive in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, and Oxford Brookes University, where he was Chairman of its Conservative Student Branch from 1995–99. He was National Chairman of Conservative Future, the youth-wing of the Conservative Party, between 2002 and 2003.

Tomlinson was manager of a nightclub called Eros in Swindon, Wiltshire. He also operated a small marketing business.

Tomlinson stood in the 2005 general election, but lost to Labour MP Michael Wills by 2,571 votes. He won the seat from Labour in the 2010 general election, defeating Labour candidate Victor Agarwall by 7,060 votes. In total, Tomlinson received 22,408 votes (44.6% of the vote), with a swing of 10.1% from Labour to the conservatives.

Along with fellow MP Chris Kelly, Tomlinson placed a bet while at university that he would be Prime Minister before the year 2038. He stands to win £500,000 should this happen.

Tomlinson sat on the Public Accounts Committee between 2012 and 2014.

He reported fellow MP Sadiq Khan to the police in 2014 after Khan was photographed apparently driving whilst using a mobile phone. Tomlinson said "those who make the laws should certainly not be above them".

Tomlinson was given the role of Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Disabled People in May 2015.

Wonga

Tomlinson faced calls for his resignation in October 2015 after it was revealed than he had leaked information from the Public Accounts committee regarding regulation of short term high cost credit "payday lenders" to Wonga.com back in 2013. Tomlinson accepted he had broken the rules and apologised, claiming that his "strongly-held belief that action needed to be taken on payday lenders" had caused his "judgement to be clouded".

Tomlinson arranged £30,000 of sponsorship for Swindon Supermarine F.C., a local football team by the same payday lender wonga.com. The football club's chairman, Jez Webb has made donations of £30,218 to both Tomlinson's and local Conservative party funds since 2014. Webb stated that he donated in a personal capacity and that the very similar amounts "were coincindental."

Tomlinson was subsequently accused of trying to remove references to previous links to Wonga from his website, including the arrangement of a sponsorship deal with Swindon Supermarine F.C. in 2011

In September 2016, Tomlinson was forced to apologise for leaking "a draft of a public accounts committee report on the credit industry to someone he knew who worked for payday lender Wonga. And when his mate (sic) emailed four suggested amendments back, he had forwarded them virtually word for word on to the committee as if they were his own".

Tomlinson announced his engagement to Jo Wheeler in August 2011, having proposed on The Peak, the highest point on Hong Kong Island.

The couple married at the House of Commons on 2 June 2012.