With John Major’s government in trouble, the Lib Dems threw everything into the by-election campaign. Chidgey’s margin of victory would have been even greater had not Labour’s vote held solid, polling day coming less than a month after the death of the party’s respected leader John Smith.

Arriving at Westminster as the Lib Dems’ 23rd MP, Chidgey criticised the Department of Employment for targeting Big Issue vendors as likely social security fraudsters, and complained that Hampshire, as the most “defence-dependent” county, had suffered unduly from cuts after the end of the Cold War.

After a spell as employment spokesman, in November 1995 Paddy Ashdown moved him to Transport. Chidgey urged renegotiation of rail privatisation to maximise improvements for passengers instead of benefiting lawyers and accountants, claiming that the process was driven by “the manic belief that competition and market forces are the ultimate goal in trying to provide an efficient railway system”.

He was not expected to hold Eastleigh at the 1997 election, partly because of adverse boundary changes, but defied the sceptics to win re-election by 754 votes as New Labour romped to power.

That September, Chidgey moved on to shadow DTI ministers, pressing for a crackdown on anti-competitive practices among funeral directors.

In 1999, Ashdown’s successor Charles Kennedy made him foreign affairs and international development spokesman on Africa. When he left the front bench after increasing his majority at the 2001 election, he maintained that interest on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. He also served on the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Speaker’s panel of committee chairmen.

He stood down at the 2005 election, when Huhne held Eastleigh by 568 votes, and was immediately created a life peer. For his first two years in the Lords he was a defence spokesman, and in 2009-10 a delegate to the Council of Europe. But increasingly his focus was on Africa.

In 2007 Chidgey was appointed to the governing council of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa. The following year, he became chairman of the oversight committee for the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit.

Later, he chaired or co-chaired the Lib Dems’ parliamentary committee on international development, and the all-party groups on Africa and the Commonwealth. He was a freeman of the City of London and the Borough of Eastleigh, and a liveryman of the Carmen’s Company.

David Chidgey married April Idris-Jones in 1965. She survives him with their son and two daughters.

David Chidgey, born July 9 1942, died February 15 2022