The former backbench Tory MP Sir Richard Shepherd, who has died aged 79, ploughed a sometimes lonely but always widely respected furrow as one of the party’s libertarians, even when he fell foul of ministers’ wishes and the demands of three-line whips. Holding the executive to account was ultimately more important to him than toeing the party line.
Independent-minded and Eurosceptic, he gave fervent, even emotional, support to the concept of open government and freedom of information during a long career in the Commons. He was never promoted to ministerial office – nor would he probably have wanted to be – but he was, rather to his surprise and embarrassment, knighted in 2013. He stood down as an MP at the 2015 general election, after representing the constituency of Aldridge-Brownhills in the West Midlands for 36 years.
