First parliament (2010–15) In the run up to the
2010 general election, Graham was criticised by the
incumbent Gloucester Labour MP
Parmjit Dhanda and Stroud MP
David Drew for using members and supporters of the foxhound pack Heythrop Hunt to campaign and leaflet on his behalf. Graham was elected with 39.9% of the vote and a majority of 2,420. Following his election, Graham was a member of the Select Committee for Work and Pensions from May to November 2010, and since July 2015. In November 2012, Graham was appointed
Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to
Indonesia. In June 2010, his first debate in Parliament regarding apprenticeships and their importance to Gloucester was cancelled after both he and the apprenticeship minister arrived late. Graham later blamed a 'printer error'. Graham also apologised to the
Serjeant at Arms in 2010 after he shared a photo taken of him in the House of Commons Chamber when it was not sitting with the
Gloucester Citizen which also accompanied an article in that newspaper on his maiden speech. Photography is only permitted by the Speaker in exceptional circumstances. In January 2013, Graham attracted criticism after suggesting to
Gloucester Citizen that young women who wear high heels and short skirts put themselves at greater risk of rape. He said, "If you are blind drunk and wearing those clothes how able are you to get away?" Graham denied he was "
victim blaming", saying that his comments were about "risk management". In January 2013 Graham also turned down a student applying to his office for work experience over what he described as a ‘foul mouthed tweet’ Graham successfully campaigned for stronger dangerous driving sentencing laws in 2013 for those driving uninsured and under the influence of
alcohol. In July 2015, he was banned from driving for six months at Stroud Magistrates Court after he was caught driving at 90 mph in a 70 mph speed limit on the
A417 near
Cirencester, in the
Cotswolds on 14 December 2014. He already had nine points on his licence at the time so faced automatic disqualification. He was fined £525 with costs totalling £85 and a £53 victim surcharge. Consequently, he also had a road safety award withdrawn which he received from the charity
Brake in January 2015. In November 2014, a UK China Leadership Forum in
China, led by
Peter Mandelson and
Ken Clarke, was cancelled at the last minute in sympathy with Graham after he was denied a visa to
China following a Westminster debate on the pro-democracy protests in
Hong Kong where he voiced his support for the protesters' human rights demands. In April 2015, Graham was ordered by a
judge to remove tweets that discussed a murder trial in
Gloucester after the defendant's barrister accused him of "a clear attempt to win votes by ingratiating himself with his electors." The defendant was later found guilty of murder.
Second parliament (2015–17) At the
2015 general election, Graham was re-elected with an increased vote share of 45.3% and an increased majority of 7,251. He apologised for parking his official campaign van in the County Council building car park disabled parking bay for 30 minutes during a memorial ceremony for police after a "37 hour day" following the election. In May 2015, Graham was mocked on
Twitter after taking a joke by
David Schneider about
YouGov Polls at face value. In November 2015, Graham was accused of quoting
Joseph Goebbels in defending a new surveillance bill with the words "if you've nothing to hide you have nothing to fear".
The Independent pointed out that former Conservative
Foreign Secretary William Hague had also used the same phrase in 2013 whilst Graham dismissed the argument as "clearly absurd" as Goebbels would have spoken in
German. In 2016, Graham was a member of the joint Select Committee which investigated the
British Home Stores Pension Fund. He asked Sir
Philip Green, who had responded angrily to previous questions about corporate governance, if he regarded the
offshore company structure as appropriate for a modern UK company. Green did not answer directly, but said the structuring could have been more aggressive and others were jealous of his success. Graham addressed Philip Green on what he would do for pensioners and the latter committed to funding the deficit. In January 2016, Graham launched the UKTI Education is GREAT campaign to increase engagement with British education in
Malaysia. He was also appointed the Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to
Malaysia, the
Philippines, and the ASEAN Economic Community. Graham campaigned for a "Remain" vote during the
2016 EU membership referendum, and was later involved in informal talks regarding future Free Trade Agreements as the Prime Minister's Trade Envoy to the
Philippines. In May 2017, during a
BBC interview regarding the benefits system,
Victoria Derbyshire discussed Personal Independent Payments (PIPs) for disabled people with Graham and asked why some people with permanent degenerative conditions were being reassessed for their social security payment. Graham said: "Some conditions do degenerate, some stabilise, occasionally some do get better. It's a mixed situation" but did not clarify his remarks leading to criticism.
Third parliament (2017–19) At the
2017 general election, Graham was re-elected with an increased share of the vote of 50.3%, but a reduced majority of 5,520 votes. In March 2018, Graham voted in favour of changes for any parent of children in Year 3 and above earning more than £7,400 to be ineligible to claim free school meals. In August 2018, Graham wrote in an online newsletter to his constituents that in order to increase recycling rates there would need to be an "education programme for immigrants not used to urban recycling", which drew criticism from opposition politicians, but he defended his comments as "entirely factual." During a debate on
Universal Credit on 15 October 2018 in the
House of Commons, Graham raised concerns about the lack of data gathered about local food bank users. He said, "One of the difficulties with trying to correlate the people on universal credit with those who go to food banks is that there is no precise data to compare the two. I know anecdotally the number of foreigners claiming food bank vouchers is quite high". Opposition politicians criticised this, citing national
Trussell Trust data. During a Commons debate in December 2018 on
Brexit and free movement, Graham mentioned a case of a pregnant "Young Gloucester girl who was badly beaten by her European boyfriend". Graham said that the girl was "terrified that when he comes out of prison he will return to haunt her and her family, because this country cannot deport European nationals unless they have served a sentence of longer than two years." One critic commented: "The situation Richard Graham mentioned is an obviously distressing case of
domestic violence, and Richard Graham should know better than to exploit it by jumping on an anti-immigrant bandwagon to score political points." Graham later apologised to the House for his comments which he said were "clumsy".
Fourth parliament (2019–24) At the
2019 general election, Graham was re-elected with an increased vote share of 54.2% and an increased majority of 10,277 after his rival Brexit Party candidate was withdrawn prior to the election. Graham resigned as
Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to Malaysia, the Philippines and the ASEAN Economic Community on 7 July 2022, as part of the
July 2022 government crisis, but was reinstated into the position in October, following the election of
Rishi Sunak. He was appointed
Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the
2023 New Year Honours for services to trade and investment in Southeast Asia. During the lead up to the
2024 general election, a member of Graham's campaign team stole a Labour leaflet from a constituent's letterbox. He later apologised for the incident. He was unseated by Labour's
Alex McIntyre. == Political positions ==