James Lyal Clark Provan (born 19 December 1936) is a British farmer, businessman and politician who served four terms as a Member of the European Parliament.
He was selected to be the Conservative Party candidate for North East Scotland for the 1979 European Parliament election, and won the seat despite only obtaining 33% of the vote when his opponents divided the rest evenly.
[1] That May he was a rapporteur on a report calling for a full intervention scheme in the mutton and lamb market, which had been passed by 11 votes to 10 after French pressure and against British resistance.
Provan sponsored an emergency motion in September 1983 which condemned Greece for blocking a common European response criticising the Soviet Union shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007.
[6] Provan successfully moved a motion calling for a ban on veal crates and a maximum journey time of eight hours for live cattle being transported across Europe in 1995.
[7] During the 1997 general election campaign, he contradicted a claim by the Referendum Party on the extent of gold reserves which the Bank of England would have to transfer for the Pound sterling to join the Euro.
Provan's decision to help unveil a Scottish pro-European Union poster alongside members of other parties in October 1999 caused some trouble.
He explained that it had not been made clear to him that he was the sole Scottish Conservative representative, and that it was wrong for him to go as his European Parliament constituency was in England.