David Alton
David Alton is a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords.
David Alton was a Member of the House of Commons for 18 years and is today an Independent Crossbench Life Peer. He began his career as a teacher but, in 1972, he was elected to Liverpool City Council as a Liberal as Britain’s youngest City Councillor. Twenty five years later, in 1997, David was made a Life Peer of the House of Lords. He was deputy leader of Liverpool City Council from 1975 to 1978. Alton was elected as Member of Parliament for Liverpool Edge Hill at a by-election in 1979 for the Liberal Party, when he became the "Baby of the House". When the Edge Hill constituency was abolished for the 1983 general election, he was elected as for the new Liverpool Mossley Hill constituency.
From 1979 to 1988 he served at various times as spokesman on the environment, home affairs, Northern Ireland and as Chief Whip. He is known for his strongly pro-life position on abortion, and in 1987 he resigned as Chief Whip to campaign for his unsuccessful private member's bill which aimed to stop late abortions. He became a Liberal Democrats MP when the Liberal Party merged with the SDP in 1988, but he had difficult relations with parts of the party, especially over attempts to make the party adopt a pro-choice position on abortion. wiki
"David Alton of Liverpool is an independent member of the British House of Lords having served for 18 years in the House of Commons. He is Professor of Citizenship at Liverpool John Moores University and his publications include Citizen 21: Citizenship in the New Millennium (HarperCollins, 2001). He is one of the founders of the human rights organization, The Jubilee Campaign (www.jubileecampaign.co.uk). He is a member of the Multi-Faith Board of Advisors of the Council on Faith & International Affairs and contributed a feature article entitled "Roman Catholic Responses to Religious Persecution" to the winter 2005 issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs." [1]
He is a member of the following groups:
- Multi-Faith Advisory Board, Council on Faith and International Affairs [2]
- Advisory Board, Institute on Religion and Public Policy [3]
- Board of Reference, Transformational Business Network [4]
- Pro-Life Group APPG
- Friends of CAFOD APPG
- North Korea APPG
- Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy
- Launched Jubilee Campaign UK in 1987
- Patron, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust
- Patron, Habitat for Humanity GB [5]
- Advisor, ResPublica
Before he joined the Lords he was a Liberal Democrat member of parliament in Liverpool.
Resources and articles
Related Sourcewatch articles
References
- ↑ David Alton, Council on Faith and International Affairs, accessed January 30, 2009.
- ↑ Multi-Faith Advisory Board, Council on Faith and International Affairs, accessed January 30, 2009.
- ↑ Advisory Board, Institute on Religion and Public Policy, accessed June 29, 2008.
- ↑ Board of Reference, Transformational Business Network, accessed December 22, 2008.
- ↑ Who's who, Habitat for Humanity GB, accessed April 21, 2009.
