Pearson was educated at Brierley Hill Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford (BA Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) and the University of Warwick (MA, PhD).

Having unsuccessfully contested Bexhill and Battle in the 1983 general election, Pearson entered parliament for Dudley West in a by-election in December 1994, winning a Conservative seat left vacant by the death of John Blackburn in October of that year.

In an interview with The Guardian published on 5 January 2007, Pearson courted considerable controversy by publicly criticising several airlines, particularly Ryanair, for failing to pull their weight in lowering UK carbon emissions.

[5] Whilst there he was criticised for not doing anything to avert a funding crisis at the Science and Technology Facilities Council hitting UK Astronomy and particle physics.

[6] Pearson is a non-executive chairman of EQTEC PLC, an Irish multinational gasification company rolling out successful technology in several countries.