Simon Hoare

Education

Hoare attended Bishop Hannan Comprehensive School in Cardiff: a relatively small, Catholic secondary school. Hoare graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Modern History from Greyfriars College, University of Oxford.

Professional career

Hoare worked at Conservative Central Office before becoming the personal assistant to the Conservative leader of Kingston upon Thames London Borough Council. Hoare has worked as a political officer at the Bow Group and is a member of the Tory Reform Group.

He began his public relations career in the 1990s when he joined Charles Barker. Following that he worked as head of property at Ketchum Inc., as an account director at PPS Group and as an external affairs director at the Environmental Services Association.

Following this, Hoare began his own public relations and lobbying company, Community Connect, of which he was managing director. Following the 2010 general election, Hoare became a director in the public affairs arm of Four Communications.

Hoare has also been a member of the Council of Governors of the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust.

Political career

Hoare was a Conservative cabinet member on West Oxfordshire District Council, a councillor on Oxfordshire County Council and a member of the executive of Witney Conservative Association alongside Prime Minister David Cameron. He contested Cardiff West at the 1997 general election, and Cardiff South and Penarth at the 2010 general election, coming second to Labour's Alun Michael.

Hoare was elected Member of Parliament for North Dorset at the 2015 general election, increasing his predecessor, Robert Walter's, majority from 7,625 to 21,118 votes.

Hoare was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 referendum.

Dinner with Transport Minister

As a lobbyist, Hoare had a dinner with Theresa Villiers in August 2011, with her being Minister of State for Transport at the time. Hoare was representing developers Helioslough, who had been campaigning since 2006 to build a £400 million freight terminal on green belt land near St Albans, Hertfordshire. The information was revealed when Conservative MP James Clappison tabled a parliamentary question on the meeting to Villiers.

On 10 September 2013, Conservative MP for St Albans, Anne Main, wrote to the Cabinet Secretary, Jeremy Heywood, alerting him to "an uncontrovertible breach" of the ministerial code by Villiers. Villiers was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing, but Main denounced the investigation as "whitewash".

Election literature

In Private Eye it was reported that whilst on his election leaflets he put that "My family and I live in the constituency, use local schools and are part of the community," he had only very recently moved to the constituency by the time that the leaflets had been distributed. It was stated that he was only selected to contest the seat in January and as late as 11 April 2015, an article in the Bournemouth Daily Echo reported that he was planning to move to the constituency. It was also reported that Hoare told the Bournemouth Daily Echo that he was "not a professional politician," which was contrary to his employment history in various pro-Conservative Party organisations.

He was similarly criticised when he stood in Cardiff South and Penarth at the 2010 general election.