Ex-minister set for safe seat

PATRICIA WYNN DAVIES

Political Correspondent

Francis Maude, the former Tory minister knocked out in the 1992 election, was last night strongly tipped to have won the Conservative candidacy for the ultra-safe constituency of Horsham, West Sussex.

Mr Maude's selection for the redrawn but 22nd safest Tory seat in the country wil herald the return of one of the party's most prominent right-wingers after the next election.

According to some Westminster sources, the former Financial Secretary, who now chairs the Department of Trade and Industry Deregulation Task Force, is set to become an important figure on the party's right wing.

There was even a prediction that he would overtake Michael Portillo, the Secretary of State for Defence, and John Redwood, the former Secretary of State for Wales, as the favourite of the right in a future leadership contest when John Major stands down.

Mr Maude was understood last night to have comfortably beaten his two relatively unknown opponents on the shortlist, Gary Ling and Mark Prisk, thus bucking the trend in Conservative local parties against so-called "retreads".

As the former MP for Warwickshire North until the 1992 election, he held ministerial posts in both the Department of Trade and Industry and the Foreign Office, prior to joining the Treasury in 1990. Before that he served as a Government whip and was a member of Tory-controlled Westminster Council from 1987 to 1984.

A former barrister and son of the long-serving MP and minister Angus (later Lord) Maude, he was one of a crop of experienced and able Tories despatched at the last election.

Mr Maude will be welcomed back with relief by the party's high command, and at the comparatively young age of 42, has in his sights the prospect of securing high office in the party, or in a future Conservative government.