Career
Oates began his career as an account manager at political and media relations firm Westminster Strategy. In 1994, he stood as a Liberal Democrat councillor for Grove ward in the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames. During his time as a councillor, he served as Deputy Leader, helped create of a structure for giving power to local residents and gained national exposure for proposing a conference motion on council control over the National Health Service.
Oates remained in local and national politics, serving as an election agent for Edward Davey, a winning candidate at the 1997 General Election.
In 1999, Oates took a position at the Westminster Foundation for Democracy where he was assigned to a role as a political and media adviser to the Inkatha Freedom Party in the South African Parliament, advising Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Reverend Musa Zondi. Oates then returned to the United Kingdom in 2001 as a Policy and Communications Company-ordinator at the Youth Justice Board, advising chairman Lord Warner.
In 2010, he also stood as a candidate for the safe Conservative seat of Coombe Hill on Kingston Council and was rated by the Daily Telegraph in September of that year as the fifth "most influential" Liberal Democrat. He was created a life peer taking the title Baron Oates, of Denby Grange in the County of West Yorkshire on 5 October 2015.
