Peter William Bone (born 19 October 1952) is a British former politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wellingborough from 2005 until his removal in 2023. A member of the Conservative Party, he had sat as an independent in the House of Commons after the Conservative whip was withdrawn from him in 2023. He campaigned for Brexit in the EU referendum and was part of the political advisory board of Leave Means Leave. From July to September 2022, he served as Deputy Leader of the House of Commons.
In October 2023, the House of Commons accepted a report by the Independent Expert Panel recommending that Bone be suspended from the House for six weeks in relation to its findings that Bone had bullied and was sexually inappropriate around a former member of staff. This in turn triggered a recall petition under the Recall of MPs Act 2015 for his Wellingborough constituency in which Bone was vacated from his seat in December 2023. Bone was not a candidate at the subsequent by-election held in February 2024.
Bone was born on 19 October 1952 in Billericay in Essex. He was educated at Westcliff High School for Boys, a grammar school. Bone qualified as a chartered accountant in 1976.
In 1978, Bone was elected as a councillor for the Blenheim ward on Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, where he served for eight years, until 1986. He was elected as the deputy chairman of the Southend West Conservative Association in 1977 and continued in the position until 1984. In 1982, he became press secretary to the Conservative MP Paul Channon.
He unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary seat of Islwyn in the South Wales valleys at the 1992 general election against the then Leader of the Opposition Neil Kinnock. Bone subsequently fought the European Parliament election in 1994 for Mid and West Wales, coming third.
Bone was chosen for the previously safe Conservative seat of Pudsey in West Yorkshire following the retirement of the veteran MP Giles Shaw at the 1997 general election, but lost following a swing of 13.2% to Labour's Paul Truswell.
In the 2001 general election he fought the ultra-marginal seat of Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, where the sitting Labour MP Paul Stinchcombe held a majority of just 187, having defeated the veteran Conservative MP Peter Fry in 1997. Stinchcombe held on to his seat by 2,355, a swing of 2.1% to Labour.
In the 2005 general election, Bone ousted Stinchcombe in Wellingborough with a majority of 687 votes, a swing of 2.9%.
Bone was a member of the 1922 Committee and was an executive member from 2007 to 2012.
In March 2009, Bone was one of the key speakers opposing the use of the House of Commons by the UK Youth Parliament, having been appointed one of the Tellers.
Although Bone was not mentioned in the 2009 Legg Report that was central to the official investigation into the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal and therefore was not one of the 343 MPs required to pay back any money, he was subject to some later reports relating to his expenses. He was one of 32 MPs who claimed the maximum allowance of £4,800 a year for food in 2010 and came under investigation in 2014 for expenses claims relating to the upkeep of his second home. In 2016 he was criticised for using the government's help-to-buy scheme, which was meant to help young first time buyers, to buy himself a new constituency home.
At the 2010 general election Bone was re-elected as the MP for Wellingborough with an increased majority of 18,540 votes, achieving a swing of 6.15%.
Bone proposed a bill in July 2013, arguing that the August Bank Holiday should be renamed to Margaret Thatcher Day to commemorate her premiership. The bill ran out of time, due to filibustering by Labour MPs and formally ended its passage through Parliament in 2014.
In February 2014, The Times newspaper reported that Bone had been under investigation by the police during the previous 12 months relating to an alleged £100,000 fraud concerning benefit payments of care home fees for his mother-in-law. Bone issued a lengthy statement denying fraud allegations. In March 2014, the Crown Prosecution Service said it had concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.
Bone was frequently critical of the coalition government of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. In the 2015 general election, he increased his majority by 1,347 achieving 52.1% of the votes cast, and was re-elected in the 2017 general election with a decreased majority of 12,460.
In February 2018, following the announcement that Northamptonshire County Council had brought in a "section 114" notice, putting it in special measures following a crisis in its finances, Bone was one of seven local MPs who released a statement arguing that the problems with the authority were down to mismanagement from the Conservative councillors who led it rather than funding cuts from the Conservative government. They further argued that government commissioners should take over the running of the council.
Before they separated, Bone employed his wife, Jennie, as his executive secretary. In 2007–2008, he paid her "in the top bracket of up to £40,000" per annum. The practice of MPs employing family members has been criticised by some sections of the media as nepotism. Although MPs who were first elected in 2017 were banned from employing family members, the restriction was not retrospective – meaning that Bone's employment of his wife was lawful.
In June 2018, Bone defended fellow Conservative MP Christopher Chope after he was widely criticised for blocking a private member's bill to make it illegal to take photos of people aimed up their skirts. Bone said that Chope was "a great parliamentarian and public servant" and stated that "a government upskirting bill should be introduced soon, properly scrutinised and will become law much faster than by the private member's bill route."