Heidi Allen
Lua error in Module:Infobox at line 235: malformed pattern (missing ']'). Heidi Allen (born 18 January 1975) is a British Conservative Party politician.
Allen was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for South Cambridgeshire at the 2015 general election. She succeeded Andrew Lansley, the former Conservative Government Minister who had held the seat since its creation in 1997, following his retirement from the House of Commons in 2015.[1]
Early life and education
Allen was born in Notton, a small rural village in West Yorkshire and attained a degree in Astrophysics from University College London (BSc).
Career
Allen worked in various corporate positions, including ExxonMobil and the Royal Mail.[2] In 2008 she joined the family classic-motorcycle paints business, RS Bike Paint Ltd, established by her parents in 1978[3] and now run by her husband Phil Allen. Heidi helped it develop from its original UK-based customer base into an export-driven company.[4]
Political career
Allen claims she was inspired to get involved in politics after watching the scenes of the Tottenham riots, and first became a councillor in St Albans.
In 2014, Allen came a close second in the controversial open primary for the South East Cambridgeshire parliamentary constituency[5] before, in October, being selected as Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC), for South Cambridgeshire.[6] The seat was already held by the Conservative Andrew Lansley, then a Cabinet Minister, who had decided to stand down at the next general election,.[7] She won the seat in the 2015 general election, increasing the Conservative majority and taking 51.1% of the votes cast. The nearest candidate was Labour who took 17.6% of the vote.[1]
In July 2015, she was elected a Member of the Work and Pensions Select Committee.[8] Allen made her maiden speech before the House of Commons on 20 October 2015, when she detailed criticism of proposed cuts to tax credits, saying, ‘because today I can sit on my hands no longer’. She wanted to criticise the proposed tax credit cuts. She wanted to intervene before it was ‘too late’ to stop the changes to tax credits, even though she didn’t want to support the motion tabled by Labour because she disagreed with the party’s overall stance,[9][10][11] whilst also not being in favour of the Government's motion over tax credit cuts.[12] Isabel Hardman of The Spectator described her speech as "truly brave" and "well argued".[13] Despite her speech she voted in favour of tax credit cuts, in line with the Conservative whip.[14][15]
References
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
Cite error: Invalid <references> tag; parameter "group" is allowed only.
<references />, or <references group="..." />External links
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament for South Cambridgeshire 2015–present |
Incumbent |
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ www.rsbikepaint.com
- ↑ www.heidisouthcambs.co.uk
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
