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Steve Webb
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Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Energy
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Biography
Steve Webb is the Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Energy.
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
He started his blog,
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.
Education:
Dartmouth High School, Hertford College, Oxford
Experience:
Economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Professor of Social Policy at Bath University.
Parliamentary experience:
October 2008 - Shadow Secretary for Climate Change and Energy; 2007 to 2008 Shadow Secretary for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; 2005 to 2006 Shadow Secretary for Health; 2001 to 2005 Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions.
General election 2005 result
Seat: Northavon
Current MP: Steve Webb
| Liberal Democrats | 52% | 30872 votes | |
| Labour | 11% | 6277 votes | |
| Conservatives | 34% | 19839 votes | |
| Others | 3% | 1954 votes |