In government

In 1988, he became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd and in 1990 was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary for Housing and Planning. After the 1992 general election Yeo became Parliamentary Under Secretary for Health.

In 1993, Yeo was appointed Minister for the Environment and Countryside in John Major's government, but was forced to resign after a scandal involving his so-called "love child" with a Conservative councillor, Julia Stent, who was born on 8 July 1993.^[4] Three years earlier, Yeo had said to the branch of Relate in his constituency, "It is in everyone's interests to reduce broken families and the number of single parents. I have seen from my own constituency the consequences of marital breakdown."^[5] The story broke on Boxing Day during a quiet news period and intense coverage was given to the scandal. Yeo resigned on 5 January 1994; he was the first ministerial casualty of the media reaction to John Major's Back to Basics campaign.^[6]

In opposition

After the Conservatives' defeat in the 1997 general election, the party's new leader William Hague appointed Yeo as a spokesman on the Environment, Transport and the Regions. He was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Minister of Agriculture in 1998. In 2001, he played a leading role in exposing the Government's mishandling of the Foot and Mouth Disease epidemic.^[7]

Yeo was a member of Iain Duncan Smith's Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. In 2003, Yeo was made Shadow Secretary for Education and Health by the party's new leader, Michael Howard,^[8] with responsibility for the party's policy on both schools and hospitals. In 2004, Howard made Yeo the Shadow Secretary for the Environment and Transport.^[9]

Yeo resigned from the shadow cabinet shortly after the 2005 general election, saying he wished to be free to play a role in rethinking the Conservative Party's future. On 27 August, he ruled himself out of the ensuing party leadership election following Howard's resignation, announcing his backing for former Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke. The contest was won by the then-Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, David Cameron.

Committee chair

As chair of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, Yeo was an influential voice on energy policy. Despite his committee releasing a report sceptical of hydraulic fracturing in the United Kingdom, Yeo revised his personal opinion and supported the use of the technique in the UK. In 2012, he announced that he supported the proposal for a third runway at Heathrow Airport, and that his long-held "environmental objections" to expansion were "disappearing".^[10] In 2013, he stated that the government reaching an agreement over nuclear power expansion was a "matter of great urgency", and warned that Britain could run out of energy if negotiations were not concluded quickly.^[11]

On 9 June 2013, The Sunday Times alleged, citing video evidence of a conversation with the MP, that he had helped "coach" a solar energy company executive for an appearance before his parliamentary committee; the parent company pays Yeo. The MP referred himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and said that he intended to fight the claims made against him.^[12] On 24 November 2015, he lost his libel action against the newspaper in the High Court, with judge Mr Justice Warby saying that the newspaper's reporting was "substantially true" and describing Yeo's evidence as "unreliable" and "untruthful", with one part being "unworthy of belief".^[13] The Daily Telegraph suggested this should also raise questions about Kathryn Hudson's performance as Standards Commissioner, as she had previously cleared Mr Yeo of breaching the rules on lobbying ministers for financial reward and of bringing the Commons into disrepute.^[13]

On 9 June 2013 he temporarily "stepped aside" as the chair of the committee.^[14] The Liberal Democrat Sir Robert Smith replaced him on an interim basis.^[15]

Deselection

Yeo was deselected for the 2015 general election in a secret ballot of South Suffolk Conservative Party members on 29 November 2013.^[16] He remained the MP for the constituency until the election in May 2015.^[17]