A FORMER Hampshire MEP has died at the age of 91.

Edward Kellett-Bowman represented Hampshire Central 1988-94 and then Itchen Test and Avon 1994-99.

His late wife Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman, who died in 2014, was MP for Lancaster from 1970 to 1997.

He lived for many years in Ampfield and his funeral will be at St Mark’s Ampfield on December 14.

Former county council leader Roy Perry, who lives in Wellow, paid tribute: "I served with Edward in the European Parliament, when I was MEP for Wight and  Hampshire South in the 1994-99 session and Edward was MEP for Itchen Test and Avon (Southampton, Eastleigh, Test Valley,  New Forest, Salisbury).

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"Edward’s major role and activity in the European Parliament was in Budget and Budget Control issues. He and I helped establish and both sat on the first  European Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry which was into activities of Tobacco and Customs Fraudsters.

"I can remember joining  Edward on a parliamentary inspection to the Docks in Naples, where we had to have vehicles full of armed police in front and behind the mini-coach carrying MEPs and other EU officials. The armed Carabinieri fanned out with their guns at the ready as soon as we entered Naples dockyard, before we MEPs were allowed out of our mini coach - the Italian authorities  were so worried by the Mafia and needed to protect this high-powered European delegation."

On another occasion that committee went to the Slovakia/Ukraine border where we saw lorries held up for hours, if not days for customs inspection either side of the frontier. Those were the days when there were no such queues and delays at Dover."

Edward was a keen member of the Kangaroo Group of MEPs that had been founded by Basil de Ferranti, another Hampshire MEP, to help create and develop the Single Market -very much with the backing and support of Margaret Thatcher. Mr Perry added: "In 1994 Edward and I joined forces when the Parliamentary Boundary Commission wanted to name the new Euro constituency for  Hampshire as “Itchen and Avon” and we got them to agree it was to be called Itchen, Test and Avon (at that time, just before I became MEP, I was Leader of Test Valley Borough Council) and was keen the River Test was not ignored in the name of the Euro constituency and was delighted to get Edward’s support."