[3] Between 1979 and 1983, Bellwin served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of the Environment under Michael Heseltine.
As a junior minister, Bellwin piloted 28 bills through the House of Lords, including the Thatcher government's 'Right to Buy' legislation and the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
He spoke more than 1,000 times in the Lords during the passage of Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980.
He resigned from the government in 1984, allegedly because of his opposition to Margaret Thatcher's plans to abolish the Labour-dominated metropolitan county councils.
[1] Bellwin was made a Justice of the Peace for Leeds in 1969 and became a Deputy Lieutenant for West Yorkshire in 1991.