Steve Webb

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Prof. Steven John Webb MP

Member of Parliament for Northavon
Incumbent
Assumed office 2 May 1997
Preceded by	Sir John Cope, (Conservative)
Majority	11,033

Born	18 July 1965 (1965-07-18) (age 42) Birmingham, England
Political party	Liberal Democrats
Spouse	Helen
Children	2
Alma mater	Hertford College, Oxford
Profession	Academic
Website	Steve Webb MP (Website)

This article is about the British politician. For other people of the same name, see Steve Webb (disambiguation)

Professor Steven John Webb, better known as Steve Webb, is a British politician, the Member of Parliament for Northavon and the Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Energy, Food and Rural Affairs.

1 Background
2 Political career
3 Family
4 Leadership election 2007
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
- 7.1 News items
- 7.2 Video clips

[edit] Background

Webb was born in West Bromwich on 18 July 1965 to Brian and Patricia Webb, and attended the local comprehensive school (Dartmouth High School), before going on to study Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Hertford College, Oxford. At the age of twenty-one he left university to work at the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London, where he specialised in researching into poverty, taxes and benefits. In 1995, he became a Professor of Social Policy at the University of Bath.

[edit] Political career

At the 1997 General Election Webb was elected as MP for the Northavon constituency, just north of Bristol, overturning a Conservative majority of over 11,000. He increased a 2,137 majority to 9,877 in the 2001 Election and again to 11,033 in the 2005 Election.

In 2001, Webb was promoted by Charles Kennedy to lead spokesman for the Liberal Democrats on Work and Pensions, a portfolio he had worked in since 1999. He continued in this position until being appointed as Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Health in 2005. At the end of 2006, he started a new role co-ordinating the party's manifesto for the next General Election.

Webb is also a member of the cross-party Christians in Parliament and vice-president of the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum. ^[1]

Webb is one of the growing number of MPs to have a blog and a website, and in 2004 his website, which makes use of SMS technology, was commended in the New Statesman New Media Awards and, in February 2005, led him to win the inaugural Hansard Society E-Democracy Award. He has also recognised the emerging potential of online social utility networks by joining MySpace and Facebook, two of the biggest. He is one of the contributors to the Orange Book (2004) and is the author of a chapter in The Future of the NHS (2006) (ISBN 1-85811-369-5) edited by Michelle Tempest.

[edit] Family

On July 10 1993, Steve Webb married Helen Edwards, then a curate at his local church in Clapham. A year later, the couple moved to Bristol, where they remain today. The couple have two children: a daughter was born in December 1995 and a son followed in May 1998.

[edit] Leadership election 2007

Given his increasing profile and popularity within the party due to his role as the manifesto chair, he was seen as a probable candidate for the social liberal grouping's vote in the future leadership election. Simon Hughes has been the previous standard bearer in the leadership elections in 1999 and 2006. On October 17, 2007 the website Bloggers4Steve announced that Webb had received enough nominations from MPs to run. Despite this, on October 18 Webb announced he was not running and would be backing Nick Clegg for leader.^[2] In the first reshuffle after the election, he was appointed Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Energy, Food and Rural Affairs.