Ian Richard Peregrine Liddell-Grainger (born 23 February 1959) is a British former Conservative Party politician and former property developer. He was MP for Bridgwater from 2001 until 2010, and until 2024, MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset. Through his mother, he is a great-great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria, third cousin of Charles III, fourth cousin of King Willem-Alexander and second cousin once removed of Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.
Ian Liddell-Grainger was born on 23 February 1959 in Edinburgh to David Liddell-Grainger and Anne (née Abel Smith), whose mother was Lady May Abel Smith, great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. The Liddell-Grainger family were landed gentry, of Ayton Castle, Scottish Borders, formerly of Middleton Hall, Middleton, Northumberland.
Liddell-Grainger was privately educated at Wellesley House School in Broadstairs and Millfield School in Somerset, before gaining a National Certificate of Agriculture at the South Scotland Agricultural College in Edinburgh. He ran a 250-acre (1.0 km2) farm in the Scottish Borders from 1980 to 1985 before becoming the managing director of his family's property management and development company.
Commissioned in the Territorial Army, Liddell-Grainger was promoted to major serving with the 6th Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, and commanded the Machine-Gun Platoon and then X Company of the Battalion in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
In 1991, he was elected for the Conservative Party as a District Councillor on Tynedale District Council in Northumberland, representing the East Tynedale ward. He served until 1995, when Labour took the seat.
Liddell-Grainger stood as the Conservative candidate in Torridge and West Devon at the 1997 general election, coming second with 38.5% of the vote behind the Liberal Democrat candidate John Burnett.
At the 2001 general election, Liddell-Grainger was elected to Parliament as MP for Bridgwater with 40.4% of the vote and a majority of 4,987. He was re-elected as MP for Bridgwater at the 2005 general election with an increased vote share of 44.1% of the vote and an increased majority of 8,469.
In 2006, Liddell-Grainger was disqualified from the WriteToThem league table after faking e-mails and replies to himself to improve his "responsiveness rating" on a website which helps people contact their elected representatives. Liddell-Grainger's spokesman commented that the e-mails had been sent to test the data that the website was judging him on.
Prior to the 2010 general election, Liddell-Grainger's constituency of Bridgwater was abolished and replaced with Bridgwater and West Somerset. Liddell-Grainger was elected at the 2010 general election as MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset with 45.3% of the vote and a majority of 9,249.
At the 2010 general election, Liddell-Grainger declined to attend any election hustings or to take part in the BBC's election coverage. A Facebook group was set up asking "Where's Ian Liddell-Grainger?" Liddell-Grainger said that he was busy canvassing and dealing with casework.
The cancellation of plans to build new school buildings in Bridgwater in 2010 led Liddell-Grainger to threaten to "march" on Downing Street in protest. The cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future projects was one of the first acts by the newly elected coalition government's Minister for Education Michael Gove. Liddell-Grainger claimed that Bridgwater's schools were in need of rebuilding and that the plans, which had cancelled projects in three of the town's six schools, were actually all under one project heading and had been working effectively. Gove was forced to apologise for a number of errors in the cancellation of the project nationally and the Bridgwater project was reconsidered by the government after Liddell-Grainger met Gove and it became apparent that Gove "wasn't aware of all the facts to do with the Bridgwater scheme".
In 2010, Liddell-Grainger criticised plans by the Environment Agency and Natural England to create a wetland habitat at Steart on the Severn estuary as part of a realignment of coastal flood defences. The project, which he said the nation "should not and must not afford", went ahead in 2012.
Liddell-Grainger voiced opposition to wind power schemes in his constituency, including plans to build two wind turbines at Wiveliscombe in 2012. In March 2013 he supported the decision to allow planning permission to build a third nuclear power station at Hinkley Point.
At the 2015 general election, Liddell-Grainger was re-elected as MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset with an increased vote share of 46% and an increased majority of 14,583.
Liddell-Grainger was a member of the 18-strong British delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and headed one of the five political groups in the Assembly, the European Conservatives Group. He supported Brexit in the 2016 referendum.
At the snap 2017 general election, Liddell-Grainger was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 55.1% and an increased majority of 15,448.
In June 2018, he was accused of trivialising suicide by political rivals after shouting out that representatives of the SNP should consider 'suicide' after the SNP's Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, asked John Bercow, the sitting speaker, a question about Scotland's future following Brexit. He later defended his comments, stating he was referring to 'political suicide'.
Liddell-Grainger chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Energy Studies, Nuclear Energy, the All-Party Pharmaceuticals group, the All-Party Dyslexia group, and the All-Party Tax group, and is also a member of the All Parliamentary Armed Forces Scheme with the Royal Air Force and the all Parliamentary Radio Group. He also sits on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and has previously sat on the Public Administration Committee, the Environmental Audit Committee, the DEFRA select committee, the Statutory Instruments (Select/Joint Committees), the Scottish Committee as well as the Crossrail Bill Committee.