The Liberal Democrats today announced their candidates in England for the European Parliament elections in 2009.

The candidates were elected by Liberal Democrat members in each of the English regions that they will be seeking to represent.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Acting Leader Vince Cable MP said:

"I am delighted that we have selected such a strong field of candidates to contest the next elections to the European Parliament.

"Liberal Democrat MEPs play a vital role in the European Parliament, promoting measures to tackle critical EU wide issues such as climate change and ensuring that the European Union is held accountable to the public.

"I look forward to seeing an even stronger Liberal Democrat representation in the European Parliament after next year’s elections."

Notes:
1. The candidates were elected using the Single Transferable Vote system by Liberal Democrat members in each English region (Scotland and Wales are selecting their candidates on a different timetable).

2. The Treaty of Lisbon provides for the UK to have an additional seat in the European Parliament, but the region to which this will be allocated has not been determined and therefore this was not taken into consideration when selecting the candidates. The UK’s extra seat will only come into effect with ratification of the Treaty and the party's selection rules cover how the extra candidate will be selected if required.

3. Candidates have been selected for each region in the order listed below:

East Midlands
1. Bill Newton Dunn
2. Ed Maxfield
3. Veena Hudson
4. Denise Hawksworth
5. Deborah Newton-Cook

Eastern
1. Andrew Duff
2. Linda Jack
3. Ian Mack
4. Peter Welch
5. Earnshaw Palmer
6. Andrew Houseley
7. Qurban Hussain

London
1. Sarah Ludford
2. Jonathan Fryer
3. Dinti Batstone
4. Christopher Le Breton
5. John Pindar
6. Simon James
7. Caroline Persson
8. Ben Jones

North East
1. Fiona Hall
2. Chris Foote-Wood
3. Neil Bradbury

North West 
1. Chris Davies
2. Helen Foster-Grime
3. Sue McGuire
4. Qassim Afzal
5. Neil Corlett
6. Mark Clayton
7. Stephen Cooke
8. Peter Hirst

South East
1. Sharon Bowles
2. Catherine Bearder
3. Ben Abbotts
4. Jim Barnard
5. Anthony Hook
6. Murari Kaushik
7. Simon Green
8. Zoe Patrick
9. Gary Lawson
10. David Grace

South West
1. Graham Watson
2. Kay Barnard
3. Robin Teverson
4. Justine McGuiness
5. Humphrey Temperley
6. Paul Massey

West Midlands
1. Liz Lynne
2. Phil Bennion
3. Susan Juned
4. Colin Ross
5. Stephen Barber
6. William Powell

Yorkshire and the Humber
1. Diana Wallis
2. Stewart Arnold
3. Rebecca Taylor
4. James Monaghan
5. Jeannette Sunderland
6. Nader Fekri