Neil Carmichael (Conservative politician)
Encyclopedia
William Neil Carmichael (born 15 April 1961
in Hexham
Hexham
Hexham is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, located south of the River Tyne, and was the administrative centre for the Tynedale district from 1974 to 2009. The three major towns in Tynedale were Hexham, Prudhoe and Haltwhistle, although in terms of population, Prudhoe was...

) is an English businessman, academic, and Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 politician. He has been the Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for the Stroud
Stroud (UK Parliament constituency)
Stroud is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

 constituency in Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

 since the 2010 general election.

Politics

Carmichael began his political career after being elected to Northumberland County Council in 1989 on which he served four years, during this time he was an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate in the 1992 General Election in the seat of Leeds East.

In 1999 he moved to Gloucestershire where he was selected to stand for the Conservatives in the parliamentary seat of Stroud, losing to Labour in 2001 and in 2005.

Parliamentary career

Neil Carmichael managed to win the seat of Stroud in the 2010 General Election, with a 2% swing to the Conservatives from Labour with a majority of 1,299.

On entering Parliament he made his maiden speech on 2 June 2010 and became a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, the task of whom is to monitor the worthiness of all government department activity from the perspective of cutting carbon emissions. He also sits on the Education Committee at the House of Commons with the duty to scrutinise the Department for Education and provide oversight on behalf of Parliament.

In 2011 he founded the All Party Group on Education, Governance and Leadership as a consequence of publishing a report seeking to influence the government to enact a policy on the reform of school governance. He is also the Secretary of the Associate Parliamentary Health Group.

Neil Carmichael is recognised to be one of the most active debaters in the House of Commons; the BBC reported in July 2011 that he ranks fourth amongst more than 200 MPs who were first elected in 2010 in the number of debates that they have attended. As of 14 September 2011 he has voted in over 88% of divisions since becoming an MP, far above the average.

Controversy

In 2010 Neil Carmichael was accused of hypocrisy over wind farms,. locals in Northumberland were unhappy over his support on for a wind farm development on land that he owns at Bavington Hill Head Farm in Northumberland while as a Conservative candidate describing a single turbine proposed at Nympsfield as a “monstrosity”, and pledging to work to protect Gloucestershire’s rural landscapes from “excessive” developments. Carmichael's argument is that many proposed schemes in Gloucestershire border on, or are in, the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty whereas the proposed scheme in Northumberland has no such concerns.

External links

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