Chris Davies (Liberal Democrat politician)
| Chris Davies | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Member of the European Parliament for North West England |
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In office 10 June 1999 – 2 July 2014 |
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| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Julie Ward |
| Member of Parliament for Littleborough and Saddleworth |
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In office 27 July 1995 – 1 May 1997 |
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| Preceded by | Geoffrey Dickens |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
7 July 1954 Lytham St Annes, Lancashire |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Liberal Democrat |
| Residence | Greenfield, Greater Manchester |
| Alma mater |
Cheadle Hulme School Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge |
Christopher Graham Davies (born 7 July 1954) is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom. He is a former Member of Parliament, and from 1999 until 2014 he was a Member of the European Parliament.
Davies was born in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire. His father was a doctor, and his mother a nurse. He was educated at the independent Cheadle Hulme School (1965–72), at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (1972–75, reading history) and from 1975 to 1977 at the University of Kent, Canterbury.
Davies is a resident of Greenfield, in Saddleworth, Greater Manchester.
Davies was a Liberal member of Liverpool City Council from 1980 to 1984, representing Abercromby ward and serving as Chairman of the Housing Committee. From 1994 to 1998 he was a Liberal Democrat councillor for Lees ward on Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council.
Davies contested Liverpool Scotland Exchange in 1979, and then Littleborough and Saddleworth in 1987 and 1992. He became the MP for that seat after a by-election in 1995, during which time Labour campaign manager Peter Mandelson branded him “...high on taxes and soft on drugs” for supporting Liberal Democrat policy on increasing income tax by 1p in the pound to provide additional funding for education, and to establish a Royal Commission to consider decriminalisation of cannabis.
The Littleborough and Saddleworth seat was abolished by the time of the 1997 General Election. Davies contested Oldham East and Saddleworth at the 1997 election but lost to Phil Woolas of Labour.
Davies was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the North West England constituency in 1999 and served as the Liberal Democrat spokesman on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee (ENVI) in the European Parliament. In March 2014 he won a parliamentarian of the year award for his work to promote sustainable fishing through Fish for the Future, an all-party group he created in 2010. His efforts included dressing as a fish in the European Parliament to raise awareness of the need for reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). He lost his seat in the 2014 European election.
During his time as an MEP, Davies was active in the environment, climate and energy policy sectors, and served as the ALDE coordinator (team leader) on the ENVI committee from 2007. He was the rapporteur for the Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide (Carbon Capture and Storage, CCS) Directive in 2008-9 and for the implementation report on CCS in 2013-14, which called for greater action to develop and deploy CCS in the EU. In 2008 he drafted and amendment that led to the creation of a funding mechanism for CCS and innovative renewable energy projects that became known as NER300, later described by the European Commission as one the world’s largest funding programmes for innovative low-carbon energy demonstration projects.
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