Derek Murray Wyatt (born 4 December 1949) is a British politician, and Labour Member of Parliament for Sittingbourne and Sheppey in Kent, first elected in 1997, having previously been a councillor in the London Borough of Haringey.
Early life
Wyatt was educated at Westcliff County High School, Colchester Royal Grammar School, St Luke's College, Exeter (Certificate of Education 1971), the Open University (BA. Hons 2:1 in Art and Architecture 1978), and St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he was a research student 1981-82. From 1986-8, he was a Director of William Heinemann. He was Head of Programmes at Wire TV from 1994-5, and Director of the Computer Channel on BSkyB from 1995-7.
Parliamentary career
Derek Wyatt founded and was chairman of the British House of Commons all party internet group from 1997-2007 when he led the merger of it to two other groups - mobile and communications. The new name is the All party communications Group and he is now co-Chairman with John Robertson MO. He advocates forcing internet service providers (ISPs) through licensing to take steps to block spam before it arrives in inboxes. The MP wants Ofcom, the communications regulator, to take responsibility for licensing internet service providers - and fine those who fail to meet agreed standards.
He was on the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee from 1997-2005 and the Public Accounts Committee in 2007 before becoming the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Minister for the Arts and unofficially to Gerry Sutcliffe MP, Minister for Sport in July 2007; he currently chairs five all party committees in the House of Commons. In the critical votes on Iraq, he voted against intervention.
He won an ISPA Hero's Award (2006) for his work on seeing the Computer Misuse Act onto the statute book and the New Statesman Award (2006) for the best web site of an Elected Representative. Politicsonline nominated him as one of the top ten visionaries in the internet space also in 2006. Back in 2004, he was voted, in an online poll, as one of the top 100 Internet Visionaries. He founded the Oxford Internet Institute in 2000. In 2007, his web site won the British Computer Award for "best engagement". He launched a second web site: www.derekwyatt.tv in October, 2007.
In the 2005 general election, he won the 3rd smallest majority of any MP, at just 79 votes, after 2 recounts. This was somewhat fortuitous, as the initial count of votes put his Conservative opponent ahead by 118 votes but two piles of votes for Wyatt had mistakenly be awarded to his opponent.
His web site (www.derekwyatt.co.uk) is currently updated 4-5 times a day and receives upwards of 85,000 hits a week with about 12500 unique visitors.
Personal life
Derek was a top-class rugby union player. He won one full cap for England as a wing, coming on as a replacement for David Duckham against Scotland at Murrayfield in February 1976. He also played for England against the United States at Twickenham in October 1977 in a match for which full caps were not awarded and scored four tries in the match. He subsequently played for Oxford University RFC in the 1981 Varsity Match in which Rothmans Rugby Yearbook described him as the player of the day[1]. He also represented the Barbarians.
He has authored five books on rugby and one on film.
He is a trustee of Major Stanley's, TimeBank and Citizen's Online. He is both a shareholder and a season ticket holder for Charlton Athletic.
He is separated and has one daughter (aged 18) and one son (aged 15).
Derek is a Fellow of the: Royal Society of Arts, the Hon. Worshipful Company of Information Technologists and the Industry & Parliamentary Trust; he is also a Freeman of the City of London
External links
News items
Video clips
References
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