Richard Charles Scrimgeour Shepherd (born 6 December 1942) is a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.
Shepherd was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and educated at Isleworth Grammar School (now Isleworth and Syon School) on Ridgeway Road in Isleworth and at the London School of Economics receiving a BSc in Economics, where he studied with and became a friend of Robert Kilroy-Silk. At the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, he received an MSc in Economics. He was a director of the retail food businesses Partridges of Sloane Street and Shepherd Foods in London, then was an underwriter at Lloyd's of London from 1974-94.
He contested Nottingham East in February 1974. He was formerly an assistant to Sir Teddy Taylor and has been Member of Parliament for Aldridge-Brownhills since 1979. He was selected as Backbencher of the Year in 1985 and the Spectator's Parliamentarian of the Year in 1995, and in 1989, he was identified by a Mori poll of his fellow MPs to be one of the ten most effective MPs currently sitting in Parliament. He takes no notice of his party Whips, always voting how he wants.
One of the biggest moments of Shepherd's career occurred in 1988 when he introduced his Protection of Official Information Bill which was to replace parts of the Official Secrets Act. The government introduced a three line whip, a rare move at the time, which called on its MPs to vote against the bill, introduced by one of their own. This brought considerable debate at the time both in parliament and the media. It was defeated.
He was one of the Maastricht rebels and is known to have libertarian leanings. He had close links to fellow Maastricht rebels Nicholas Budgen and Christopher Gill, even giving the eulogy at Budgen's funeral at Lichfield Cathedral.
He is single. He has been President of Walsall Football Club.
