Lucy Allan | |
---|---|
Member of Parliament for Telford | |
In office 7 May 2015 –30 May 2024 | |
Preceded by | David Wright |
Succeeded by | Shaun Davies |
Personal details | |
Born | Lucy Elizabeth Allan 2 October 1964 Cheltenham,Gloucestershire,United Kingdom |
Political party | Independent (since 2024) |
Other political affiliations | Conservative (until 2024) |
Children | 1 |
Alma mater | Durham University Kingston University |
Website | lucyallan |
Lucy Elizabeth Allan (born 2 October 1964) is a British politician who served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Telford from the 2015 general election, [1] until standing down at the 2024 general election. [2] Before being elected as an MP for the Conservative Party,she was a member of Wandsworth London Borough Council from 2006 to 2012.
In 2015,Allan became the first Conservative MP,as well as the first female MP,to represent the Telford constituency. [3] She was re-elected at the 2017 and 2019 general elections. [4] [5] She served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the House of Commons,Jacob Rees-Mogg , from 2020 to 2022. [6] In November 2021,she was appointed to the Health and Social Care Select Committee. [7]
In May 2024,3 days before the end of her term,Allan was suspended from the Conservative Party for publicly supporting the Reform UK candidate for Telford,Alan Adams. [8]
Lucy Allan was born in Cheltenham on 2 October 1964, [9] the daughter of a farmer and a teacher,and grew up near Totnes,Devon. [10] She is related to the Scottish radical socialist suffragette Janie Allan,whose family owned the Allan Line shipping company. [11] [12]
Allan was educated at Durham University and Kingston Law School. She has a degree in anthropology and a master's degree in employment law. [13] [14]
She joined Price Waterhouse as a trainee in 1987, [13] [15] where she qualified as a Chartered Accountant and specialised in business turnaround,and in 1994 she further qualified as a Chartered Secretary in the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators. [13]
In 1994,she moved into investment management,reaching director level,working for UBS Warburg,Gartmore Investment,De La Rue,Mercury Asset Management and First State Investments. [13] While Head of Investment Trusts at First State Investments,which ran the Scottish American Investment Company (SAINTS) and Scottish Oriental Smaller Companies Trust, [16] she was suspended in September 2003 over alleged plagiarism in statements issued by SAINTS. [17] [18] She was made redundant in January 2004,after First State Investments ceased to manage SAINTS. [17]
In 2004,Allan began a master's degree in employment law and set up her employment law consultancy, [13] [14] [19] specialising in discrimination and maternity issues. [17] She became a non-executive director of Wandsworth NHS primary care trust in 2009 and resigned in 2010. [20] She has served as an employment tribunal panellist. [21]
Allan was elected as a local councillor to Wandsworth London Borough Council in 2006,representing the Southfields ward,and served until 2012. [22] [23] [9]
In March 2013,she was selected as the Conservative Party parliamentary candidate to contest the marginal constituency of Telford in the 2015 general election. [23] [24] She advocated a direct rail link to London from the town [25] and aimed to tackle the high rate of youth unemployment in Telford. [26]
After Allan made a visit to her GP seeking help with symptoms of depression following a family bereavement in 2010, [27] Wandsworth Council launched a child protection investigation,claiming Allan's 10-year-old son was at risk of significant harm. In the wake of the controversy which followed,Allan stood down from the council,and from her directorship with the NHS. In 2011,following legal action by Allan,social services decided to take no further action. [28] [29]
Based on her family's experience, [28] she founded Family First Group, [30] a lobby group which campaigns to reduce the number of children in state care,for improvements to the UK child protection system and support for families affected by it. [31]
In 2012 Allan fronted a media campaign on child protection injustice,which included an appearance on ITV's This Morning . [32] [33] She participated in an edition of ITV's Exposure documentary series on this subject on 15 July 2014,Don't Take My Child. [29]
In December 2015 Allan was accused of bullying members of staff, [34] and leaving a series of voicemail messages to a sick employee allegedly including a threat of dismissal. [35] [36] On 21 December 2015,a statement about the allegations was published on Allan's website but deleted later in the day. The statement apologised for Allan's voicemail messages,which were publicly released,but stated the bullying allegations were unfounded and was critical of a former employee;the London Evening Standard characterised the statement as "a long rebuttal". [37] [38] Later in January 2016,Allan acknowledged sending the voicemails was "stupid" and she regretted shouting at the employee,but denied her actions amounted to bullying. [39]
In January 2016 Allan stated that on national issues her approach in general is to advance within parliament the "libertarian agenda",to prevent the increasing influence of the state. For example,she was against a sugar tax that was under consideration by her party. [40] Allan voted to leave the EU in the June 2016 referendum. [41]
In June 2016 Allan introduced a private member's bill to repeal provisions in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 to require staff to report possible signs of extremism or radicalisation amongst primary and nursery school aged children,following a number of high-profile cases where the provision was inappropriately used in relation the government's Prevent strategy. [42]
Allan is a supporter of Brexit,and argued that the country needed to be prepared for a no-deal Brexit if necessary. [43] In April 2019,Allan welcomed the "fantastic" candidates from the Brexit Party ahead of that year's European elections. [44] She defended the comment after being criticised by some Conservative loyalists,saying that party loyalties would be "eclipsed" by the Brexit issue at the ballot box. [45]
In December 2015 Allan posted on Facebook an email she said she received from a constituent;the email was edited and ended with the words "unless you die". Allan later acknowledged that she had added those words to the email (saying she had taken them from a different email),leading to accusations of her faking a death threat. [46] [47] [48] Allan temporarily deactivated her Facebook and Twitter accounts following the incident. [49] Allan later apologised for creating a "misleading impression",and said the controversy was not about her use of social media,but due to "activists unhappy they didn't get the MP they wanted". [50]
On 14 May 2020,Allan was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions. [51] Allan was reprimanded for her actions by Conservative whips. [52]
In May 2024,Allan was suspended from the Conservative Party for publicly supporting the Reform UK candidate for Telford,Alan Adams;Allan resigned from the party the same day. [8] On 29 May 2024,it was reported that she was considering standing as a Reform UK candidate. [53]
Allan is married to a stockbroker and has a son. [10] [21] They live in Southfields,Wandsworth. [27] Allan also had a constituency house in Oakengates,Telford. [54]
David Wright is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Telford from 2001 until 2015. He was an assistant government whip from June 2009 to May 2010. In May 2019,he was elected as a Labour member of Telford and Wrekin Council,representing St George's ward,and became cabinet member for Economy,Housing,Transport and Infrastructure.
Margot Cathleen James is a British politician who served as Minister of State for Digital and Creative Industries from 2018 to 2019. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Stourbridge from 2010 to 2019. Elected as a Conservative,she had the whip removed in September 2019 and,after having the whip restored,stood down as an MP prior to the upcoming general election.
Telford is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Shaun Davies of the Labour Party.
Daniel Robert Kawczynski is a British politician who was a Conservative Party MP. Kawczynski has served as Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Environment,Food and Rural Affairs,a parliamentary aide to the former Welsh Secretary David Jones,as well as serving as a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and as Special Advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron on Central and Eastern Europe and on Central and Eastern Europeans living in the United Kingdom. On 4 July 2024,Kawczynski lost to Labour candidate Julia Buckley in a historical electoral landslide for Labour in the constituency of Shrewsbury.
Sarah Wollaston is a British former Liberal Democrat politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Totnes from 2010 to 2019. First elected for the Conservative Party,she later served as a Change UK and Liberal Democrat MP. She was chair of the Health Select Committee from 2014 to 2019 and chair of the Liaison Committee from 2017 to 2019.
Andrew Theakstone Percy is a British Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brigg and Goole from 2010 to 2024. He was an active member of many groups in Parliament,including All Party Parliamentary Groups on Financial Education for Young People,Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire as well as being a member of the anti-European Union Better Off Out Group.
Anne Marie Morris is a former British Conservative politician and lawyer,who represented Newton Abbot as a Member of Parliament (MP) between May 2010 and May 2024. During her 14 year term in office,she twice lost the party whip for a period of nine months between July and December 2017,and then again between January and May 2022.
Giacomo "Jack" Lopresti is a British Conservative Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Filton and Bradley Stoke from the 2010 general election until 2024. Lopresti was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in February 2023.
Fiona Claire Bruce is a former British Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Congleton from 2010 to 2024.
Antoinette Geraldine Mackeson-Sandbach,known as Antoinette Sandbach,is a barrister,farm manager and politician who was elected as a North Wales region Member of the Welsh Assembly at the May 2011 election,and subsequently elected Member of Parliament for Eddisbury in Cheshire at the 2015 general election.
Victoria Lorne Peta Borwick,Baroness Borwick,is a British politician.
Maria Colette Caulfield is a former British politician. She served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health and Women's Health Strategy and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women from October 2022 to July 2024.
Dame Andrea Marie Jenkyns is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament for Morley and Outwood from 2015 to 2024.
Dame Amanda Anne Milling is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Cannock Chase from the 2015 general election until losing her seat in 2024. She served as Minister without Portfolio in the UK cabinet and,alongside Ben Elliot,as Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party from February 2020 to September 2021. She also served as Minister of State for Asia and the Middle East from September 2021 to September 2022. She previously worked in market research.
Heidi Suzanne Allen is a British businesswoman and former politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Cambridgeshire from 2015 to 2019. Initially elected as a Conservative,she resigned from the party in February 2019,joining and later serving as acting leader of Change UK. She resigned from Change UK in June of the same year,and joined the Liberal Democrats in October 2019. She announced on 29 October of that year that she would not stand for re-election at the next general election.
Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch is a British politician who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Conservative Party since November 2024. The first black person to hold those offices,she previously served in the Cabinet under Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak from 2022 to 2024. She has been Member of Parliament (MP) for North West Essex since 2024,and previously for Saffron Walden from 2017 to 2024.
Lucy Elizabeth Harris is a British Conservative Party politician and advisor. She was elected as a Brexit Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Yorkshire and the Humber constituency in the 2019 European parliamentary election. She held this role until the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU. Prior to her political career,she worked in publishing as a corporate communications executive for The Quarto Group,and later the Greater London Authority.
Siobhan Kathleen Baillie is a former British politician. A member of the Conservative Party,she was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stroud from the 2019 general election until 2024. Before her parliamentary career,she was a family law solicitor,a councillor,and worked for a charity.
Stuart Paul Anderson is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the member of parliament (MP) for South Shropshire since 2024. He was previously the MP for Wolverhampton South West from 2019 until 2024. He was also Vice-Chamberlain of the Household from November 2023 until July 2024. He has been shadow minister of state for defence since July 2024.
A by-election for the United Kingdom parliamentary constituency of North Shropshire was held on 16 December 2021. It was triggered by the resignation of the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Owen Paterson on 5 November 2021. The by-election was won by Helen Morgan,with a 34% swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats.