Giacomo "Jack" Lopresti (born 23 August 1969) is a British Conservative Party politician. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Filton and Bradley Stoke since the 2010 general election.
Early life and career
Lopresti was born on 23 August 1969 in Southmead in Bristol. After leaving school, Lopresti worked in his family ice cream business for over ten years, the owners of which (Lopresti's uncle and cousin) were charged with requiring a person to perform forced or compulsory labour contrary to the Modern Slavery Act 2015. A former estate agent and mortgage broker, he worked for the Conservative Party as a Regional Development Officer and in the Conservative Party Treasurer's Department.
Lopresti served in the Territorial Army as a gunner with 266 Commando Battery, Royal Artillery from 2007. He served, as a mobilised reservist, with 29 Commando RA for a year and was deployed in Helmand Province, in Afghanistan, on Operation Herrick 9 for five months over Christmas and New Year 2008/9. Whilst in Afghanistan, Lopresti ran the Camp Bastion Half Marathon, for Help for Heroes, on New Years Day 2009. From 2011 to 2013, Lopresti served as a trooper in the Royal Wessex Yeomanry, an army reserve cavalry unit.
Political career
Lopresti unsuccessfully stood as the Conservative candidate in the Bedminster ward of Bristol City Council in 1995. He was again unsuccessful when he stood in Hartcliffe ward in 1997 and Redland ward in 1998, but was subsequently elected in the Stockwood Ward in 1999. He worked as councillor in that ward until May 2007, when he stood down and a new Conservative candidate won the seat.
He stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative Party candidate for the Bristol East constituency in 2001, and for the South West at the European Parliament elections in 2004. Although the Conservative Party did win three seats in the region, Lopresti was the sixth candidate for the seven seats that were available.
Lopresti was a member of the Conservative Party's A-List in 2006. At the 2010 general election, he was first elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Filton and Bradley Stoke, a constituency newly created after boundary changes.
In 2011, he was a member of the special Select Committee set up to scrutinise the Bill that became the Armed Forces Act 2011. He also served on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
Lopresti is a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel group, and has attended delegations of that group including during the Operation Defensive Shield conflict when he visited in 2014 for an Israeli military briefing on the Iron Dome air defence system.
At the 2015 UK general election, he retained his seat with an increased majority of almost 10,000 votes.
Lopresti supported Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum.
In July 2016, Lopresti was criticised for sponsoring and hosting a parliamentary event at which Bahrain's relationship with the UK was to be celebrated, after the MP had received several thousand pounds' worth of funding for foreign trips to the country. Opposition MPs objected to him taking gifts from a country whose human rights record had been criticised. Lopresti had faced further questions over one of the trips to Bahrain, which was paid for by the state's foreign affairs ministry, when it was reported he had attended it with fellow MP Andrea Jenkyns a month after their affair had been revealed. Neither of them were members of The Conservative Middle East Council (who had organised the trip from the UK side). Lopresti responded that the trip centred around the Bahraini Airshow, which was relevant to his defence brief, while he argued more generally that Bahrain is one of the country's key strategic allies in the Gulf and that the Bahrainis were in the process of building the UK's first naval base east of Suez since the 1970s.
Lopresti was subject to a failed attempt before the 2017 general election by some members of his local party to deselect him as the Conservative Candidate for Filton and Bradley Stoke. This followed reports in the press that he had been having an extramarital affair with a fellow MP. There was, he said, a "vicious smear campaign" in the constituency and an "attempt to destroy my character and reputation" after revelations about his private life. Lopresti said he had made a complaint to the police over a letter urging Lopresti's deselection, which had been circulated by a "former very bitter party member and possibly a disgruntled employee", and appeared to have broken data protection laws. He was re-selected.
At the 2017 UK general election, he retained his seat, but with a decreased majority.