Esher and Walton MP Ian Taylor to step down before next election

The Tory MP, who has been MP for the area since 1987, came under fire in April for claiming the maximum amount for a second home allowance - despite the fact that his Guildford home is only 15 miles away from Parliament.

In a four-page letter to the Esher and Walton Conservative Association, Mr Taylor, 64, said there were “several” reasons he would be stepping down.

He said: “I am positive about the prospect of a Conservative victory [at the next election]. Yet I would not expect to be asked to join the next Conservative Government as a minister.

“I still feel youngish and active but perhaps need another challenge in the next phase of my life, something entrepreneurial.”

Mr Taylor also said the public’s current attitude towards MPs after the allowance scandal was a further contributing factor towards his decision.

He said: “Some of the decline in respect [towards MPs] has been self-inflicted as in the public disclosure of expenses - although the matter was blown out of proportion with relatively few colleagues actually guilty of clear infringements meriting tough sanctions.

“Yet the public in their anger have not discriminated: leaving MPs collectively tainted.

However, Mr Taylor defended his own decision to have a second home near the Palace of Westminster.

“There has been some criticism of me recently for my failure to ‘commute’ rather than on the substance of whether I hold views and or take actions on key matter on behalf of constituents,” he said.

“This debases the whole system. It implies that an MP should seek to be around locally more than around Westminster. This is not the correct balance and it is not one I wish to endorse.”

Mr Taylor, famously one of the few pro-European Union (EU) Tory MPs, also criticised his party for drifting towards a “less constructive engagement with the EU”.

In 2000, Mr Taylor faced becoming the first Tory MP to be deselected by his party in 50 years, due to this stance - an attitude that has always sat uneasily with the majority of his Euro sceptic party, including members of the Esher and Walton Conservative Association.

Although he fought off this challenge, one source in the Esher and Walton Conservative Association told the Elmbridge Guardian that it was not just his defence of the EU that had irritated members.

The source claimed Mr Taylor’s hostility towards the Tory leadership in recent years meant some people in the association had a degree of resentment towards Mr Taylor and viewed him as a “loose cannon”.

Tory Councillor Rachael Lake, president of the Ambleside, Central and North Walton branch of the Esher and Walton Conservative Association, said Mr Taylor had also been damaged by the expenses affair.

Although he won with a majority of 7,727 in the 2005 General election, she said some members were worried he was increasingly losing ground to the Liberal Democrats.

She said: “I think the vote in Esher and Walton will be rejuvenated by a new candidate. He has been very damaged like lots of others by the recent press.”

Speaking to the Elmbridge Guardian after the announcement, Mr Taylor said he had made his mind up to step down when it became apparent last week the Prime Minister Gordon Brown would not be calling for a general election this autumn - an election he would have fought in.

He said: “I have had a happy and constructive 22-years so far. It was the right decision for me now.

"I am rather heartened by the number of kind messages I have received - it is better to go when people are sad as opposed to relieved."

Mr Taylor said there had been no pressure from within the party to step down and wish the Esher and Walton Conservative Association luck in choosing his successor.

The MP, who has said in the past he did not want to be a “Tory clone”, refused to comment on what sort of candidate he thought should replace him.

• What do you think? Let us know by email here, phone the newsdesk on 020 8330 9555 or leave a comment below.