He was re-elected at the 2015 general election and 2017 general election. He held the seat at the 2005 general election before boundary changes created the new seat of Bridgwater and West Somerset which he retained with a nominally reduced share of the vote at the 2010 general election. However, he was elected to parliament at the 2001 general election for the safe Conservative seat of Bridgwater in Somerset, succeeding former cabinet minister Tom King.

Liddell-Grainger unsuccessfully contested the seat of Torridge and West Devon for the Conservative Party at the 1997 general election, coming second to the Liberal Democrat candidate John Burnett. He was elected for the Conservative Party as a District Councillor on Tynedale District Council in Northumberland, for the East Tynedale Ward, in 1991 – serving until 1995 when Labour took the seat. Ĭommissioned in the Territorial Army, he was promoted Major serving with 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. Before entering Parliament he ran a 250-acre (1.0 km 2) farm in the Scottish Borders from 1980 to 1985 before becoming the managing director of his family's property management and development company.

He was privately educated at Wellesley House School in the coastal town of Broadstairs in Kent and Millfield School in the town of Street, Somerset, before gaining a National Certificate of Agriculture at the South Scotland Agricultural College in Edinburgh. The Liddell-Grainger family were landed gentry, of Ayton Castle, Scottish Borders, formerly of Middleton Hall, Middleton, Northumberland.

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.

Mps self service