Liberal Democrats : People

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WHO'S WHO

Steve Webb MP

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Lib Dem majority: 11,033 (19%)

Constituency: Northavon

Region: Western Counties

PA Number: 426

Address:
Poole Court
Poole Court Drive
Yate
BS37 5PP

Tel: 01454 322 100

Fax: 01454 866 515

Email: steve@stevewebb.org.uk

Web: http://www.stevewebb.org.uk/

Date of Birth: 18.07.1965

Occupation: MP

Education: Dartmouth High School, Hertford College, Oxford

Experience: Economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Professor of Social Policy at Bath University

Parliamentary Experience: January 2008- Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Energy, Food and Rural Affairs, 2007- 08 Shadow Secretary for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2005-06 Shadow Secretary for Health, 2001-05 Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions

Marital status/children: Married, two children

RESULTS 2005 election

Seat:

Northavon

Liberal Democrats

30,872 (52%)

Turnout:

59,056 (72%)

Conservative

19,839 (34%)

Swing

0.6% Con to Lib Dem

Labour

6,277 (11%)

BIOGRAPHY

Steve Webb is the Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Energy, Food and Rural Affairs.

Steve Webb entered Parliament at his first attempt in 1997, gaining this seat from the Conservatives. He attended Dartmouth High School (Birmingham) and read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Hertford College, Oxford. He began work as an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a non-political research institute, specialising in the workings of the personal tax and benefit system and publishing widely on trends in poverty and inequality in the UK. Steve achieved a number of distinctions, including acting as a Specialist Advisor to the Social Security Select Committee, then chaired by Frank Field, becoming a member of the Commission on Social Justice, and taking part in an IMF "technical assistance" mission to Ukraine to advise on Welfare Reform. In March 1995 he became Professor of Social Policy at Bath University. His interests are the internet and computing, music, and supporting West Bromwich Albion.

As an MP his work on local issues includes campaigns: to save Frenchay and Thornbury Hospitals; to save Post Offices and pension books; for a cinema in Yate, broadband access across Northavon, and Justice in Women’s Pensions; and against the Council Tax, tuition fees and the proposed Severnvale Stadium. He is actively involved in the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship.

He served as Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions [2001-05] and was Shadow Health Secretary from 2005 to 2006, setting up www.libdemnhswatch.com to support his work in this role. In December 2006 he stepped down from this role to focus on his work as chair of the party's election manifesto team. He was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Energy, Food and Rural Affairs by Nick Clegg in 2007, a role he served until his appointment as Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Energy, Food and Rural Affairs in January 2008.

He started his blog, http://webbsteve.blogspot.com, in January 2007.

Publications: For Richer, For Poorer: The Changing Distribution of Income in the UK 1961-1991 (Institute for Fiscal Studies, 1994). He contributed a chapter on Children, the family and the state to the Orange Book.