Sir Gary Streeter has just retired after a long career in politics, most recently as MP for South West Devon.

He was born in Portsmouth but his family soon moved to a farm near Okehampton and he retains a lifetime interest in agriculture.

He gained a first-class honours degree from King’s College London and trained as a solicitor in the City at Clifford Chance before moving back to Devon as a solicitor and partner for eight years.

Up until the age of 30 he had no interest in politics but then began his political career as a councillor representing Mount Gould on Plymouth City Council as a member of the Social Democratic Party.

Sir Gary came to believe that that he was a natural Tory and believed in their ethos so crossed the floor around 1988.

When he first got into parliament in 1992 it was for Plymouth Sutton which was Plympton and Plymstock (which is 2/3 of the SW Devon seat plus three inner-city wards).

He was then selected for the new seat of SW Devon in 1997 which swapped the inner-city wards for 1/3 in the South Hams which had a few boundary changes.

He believes his legal background served him well: “The skills a lawyer has is to take a lot of facts, to distil them and come up with a bottom-line approach.

“In my surgeries I think I saw around 18,000 people over 30 years.

“I hope I was able to take their Tesco bags full of information and distil them down to three key things.”

Under the government of John Major he worked in the Whips Office, was the Lord Chancellor’s Minister for one year and when they lost the election heavily in 1997 he became the former Prime Ministers’ Parliamentary Private Secretary as he remembers:

“He was a very broken man.

“Very battered and bruised but a very good man.”

Sir Gary then became Shadow Secretary of State for International Development under William Hague.

He voted remain in the Brexit referendum saying Europe had “dogged” the party and the ‘Norway solution’ would have been better but believes we’ve got to make it work.

He thinks we can get closer to Europe with things such as our trading relationship along with student travel and study.

The Conservative Party suffered from a heavy defeat in the general election and Sir Gary believes the party needs to adapt for the 21st century.

He said: “Whoever becomes our leader is unlikely to become Prime Minister.”

He won’t be publicly backing a single candidate to become the new leader but several candidates have caught his eye- Kemi Badenoch (for her clear-thinking), Robert Jenrick (who he knows well) and Priti Patel.

He now wants to spend more time with his wife Jan and has no wish to join the House of Lords.

Sir Gary is a committed Christian as is his successor Rebecca Smith who he describes as ‘feisty’, believes will do an excellent job and not take no for an answer.