About Chris Davies

Political position and interests

Chris Davies has represented the North West of England in the European Parliament since 1999, and serves as the only Liberal Democrat amongst the region’s 8 MEPs.  He has been his party’s environment spokesman in Brussels throughout this time.  Currently he is team leader (‘coordinator’) on the Environment Committee for the 84-strong European Liberal Democrat (ALDE) Group of MEPs.

He has concentrated particularly on climate change issues, and is recognised as having particular knowledge of carbon capture and storage technology.  Chris was rapporteur for the ‘CCS Directive’ in 2008, and played a key role in introducing the principal funding mechanism used to support development of CCS demonstration projects.  However, he has also been closely involved in the shaping of legislation dealing with emissions from vehicles, chemicals, waste, and the pollution of air and water.  Within the Parliament he also campaigns for policies to promote sustainable fisheries and to protect biodiversity.  He insists that MEPs should be transparent in all matters relating to finance and expenses.

Chris has been outspoken in his condemnation of the occupation of Palestinian land by Israel, and of the human rights abuses and injustice practised by that country.  He was the only British politician to gain access to Gaza during the Israeli onslaught in January 2009.   

On social issues he campaigns in favour of making medically assisted suicide legal, and takes a libertarian position with regard to drugs policies.  In 2002 he was found guilty in Manchester Crown Court of possession of cannabis having taken part in a demonstration in favour of drugs law reform.  He has never used an illegal drug.

When free from injury he is a competitive fell runner and takes part in a number of ultra distance events each year.

Potted biography

The North West IS Chris Davies's region. He was born in Lancashire, grew up in Cheshire, has served as a councillor on Merseyside and as an MP in Greater Manchester. As a fell runner he claims Cumbria as his spiritual home!

A Cambridge University graduate, prior to his 1999 election to the European Parliament he was a marketing consultant, and he ran his own business for much of the previous 15 years. He served for two years (1995-97) as Member of Parliament for the Littleborough and Saddleworth (Oldham/Rochdale) constituency, having spent a decade building up the party locally, and contesting two general elections, before it became the location for a controversial parliamentary by-election.

He is a former Chairman of the Housing Committee on Liverpool City Council, and represented the city centre/Toxteth ward of Abercromby from 1980-84.  A decade later he represented Lees ward on Oldham MBC (1994-98).

Chris Davies has been the Liberal Democrat MEP for the North West since 1999, and was re-elected in the 2004 and 2009 European Parliament elections.
From June 2004 until May 2006, Chris was Leader of the UK Liberal Democrat delegation in the European Parliament.  He is currently the Environment and Public Health spokesman for Liberals and Democrats across Europe in the Parliament.

Personal Details

Born:
7 July 1954. Lytham St Annes, Lancashire. Father a doctor, mother a nurse (ward sister).
Educated:
1965-72 Cheadle Hulme School
1972-75 Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge University (read history)
1975-77 University of Kent at Canterbury.

Married to Carol, a teacher of Drama and English, since 1979, by which time she was already a councillor in Liverpool having beaten him to become the first of the pair to win an election. They have a daughter, Kate (born 1991), and live in Greenfield, Saddleworth (Oldham MBC) where urban Greater Manchester meets the South Pennine hills.

Pre-1999 Political Biography

Chris joined the Liberal Party in 1974.  In the best tradition of starting from the bottom his first voluntary political job was to clear out the toilets in the derelict shop leased by the local party as a general election HQ.

Putting academic work first while at Cambridge, he became a true political activist only from the moment he arrived in Canterbury, leaving just enough time to meet Carol before setting up the university Liberal association. This doomed his economic history Ph.D. which remains unfinished in his attic.

In 1977 the two moved to Liverpool (Carol's home city) where Chris set about trying to get elected as a Liberal in the Toxteth/city centre Abercromby ward, then part of the safest Labour constituency in England. Until that time the Liberals traditionally came fourth behind the Communists. He won the seat on his third attempt in 1980.

Liberals elsewhere in Liverpool were already well established, and the party was in minority control of the city council from 1980 to 1983. As chairman of housing (1981-2 acting, 1982-3 full) Chris developed a housing co-operative programme to give people who could never afford to buy a house the chance to control their own homes, introduced the largest private sector housing renewal programme in the country, and also the largest inner city build-for-sale programme in the country.

The Liberals lost control of Liverpool in 1983. Chris worked in London for a couple of years, commuting by train each week, and started looking for a parliamentary seat to contest. His criteria were that it had to be in the North West, had to have hills nearby, had to be within daily commuting distance of Liverpool, and had to have at least an outside chance of being won by a Liberal.

He was selected as parliamentary candidate for Littleborough and Saddleworth in 1985. Although the party locally had come 2nd with 31% of the votes in the 1983 general election, in practice it hardly existed on the ground and held just 4 of the 24 council seats. Chris took a long term lead in building up the organisation and promoting the Liberals. Although he was personally unsuccessful in the 1987 and 1992 elections, by the time of the by-election the party held 20 of the 24 council seats and he had moved the constituency up from 73rd to 13th place on the Liberal Democrats' list of winnable seats.

The Littleborough and Saddleworth by-election in July 1995, following the death of sitting Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens, proved a crucial battle between the forces of 'New Labour' (Peter Mandelson was campaign manager) and the Liberal Democrats in an area where the party had grown strong on the ground. Until that time New Labour appeared to be sweeping all before them. Mandelson branded Chris as the candidate who was 'High on Taxes' (he wanted to spend more on education) and 'Soft on Drugs' (he wanted a Royal Commission to review existing laws). Chris beat the Mandelson campaign by 1,993 votes with help from Liberal Democrats across the North West. The Tories were pushed into third place.

The Liberal Democrats' victory gave the party much enhanced national credibility and proved that where it was it was strong on the ground it was perfectly capable of beating the Conservatives. It also set the scene for discussions between Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown about the 'project' for mutual cooperation.

Although Chris was a Member of Parliament for less than two years he spoke in the House on some 30 occasions, introduced four pieces of legislation and asked hundreds of questions. With a Government majority reduced to single figures his vote actually mattered, and he is pleased to have stood up for principles important to him.

In 1996 he voted against awarding himself and other MPs an increase in salary, and subsequently arranged that not a penny of the increase was paid into his pocket.

The Littleborough and Saddleworth seat disappeared through boundary changes in 1997. Chris fought the new Oldham East constituency but missed out by 3,389 votes.

Within weeks of the general election it was announced that the next European Parliament elections would be contested on a regional basis with MEPs elected through a voting method ensuring proportional representation. This provided Chris with the opportunity to represent the entire North West, and Liberal Democrat party members selected him to be their lead candidate the following year.

Chris was reselected by party members across the region to lead the Lib Dem list in the Euro elections of 2004 and 2009.