[4] He won the Gravesham seat at the 1997 general election, beating the sitting Conservative Party MP, Jacques Arnold.
He was re-elected at the 2001 general election, and served as a member of the Social Security Select Committee, Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Treasury and then minister in the Department for Work and Pensions.
At the May 2005 general election, he lost his seat in Parliament to the Conservative Party candidate, Adam Holloway,[5] who secured a majority of 654.
He had removed a sign illegally threatening to clamp his heavily pregnant wife's car and placed it on the door of a neighbour who he believed had been responsible, leaving traces of glue.
[6][7] After being defeated in the 2005 election, Pond was appointed as Chief Executive of The National Council for One Parent Families, which subsequently merged to become Gingerbread.
On leaving the FSA, he was appointed as a Partner and Head of UK Public Affairs for Kreab, an international communications agency, which he left in December 2016.
He also serves as Chair of The Money Charity and of the Caxton Foundation (a Department of Health-funded charity to provide support for those infected with Hepatitis-C following NHS treatment) and is an independent director of Cape Claims Services, an asbestos compensation scheme which has paid out over £30 million in compensation in its 10 years of existence.