Geraint Davies (Labour politician)

Geraint Richard Davies (born 3 May 1960) is a British politician who is the Labour Co-operative Member of Parliament (MP) for Swansea West. Previously, Davies was the Labour Party MP for Croydon Central from 1997 to 2005. He had also served as Leader of Croydon Borough Council.

Personal life

Davies' family comes from west Wales; his civil servant father is from Aberystwyth and his mother's family are from Swansea. He was brought up in Cardiff where he attended Llanishen High School, before studying Mathematics then Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Jesus College, Oxford; while at Oxford he was Junior Common Room President.^[1] He married Dr. Vanessa Fry in September 1991 and they now live in Swansea.

Professional background

Davies joined Unilever as a Group Product Manager in 1982, and later Colgate-Palmolive Ltd. as Marketing Manager before starting his own companies including Pure Crete Ltd. and Equity Creative Ltd. He became active in the Labour Party, being Assistant Secretary for Croydon North East Labour Party and Chair of Croydon Central Constituency Labour Party, and was a member of the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs,^[2] and later the Manufacturing, Science and Finance union.^[3] before joining the GMB in 1985. He has been a member of the Co-operative Party since 1984.

Political career

Local politics

Davies was elected to Croydon Borough Council in 1986 for New Addington ward, which he retained at the 1990 and 1994. Davies became Director of Pure Crete Ltd, described as a 'Green tour operator',^[3] in 1989.^[1]

When Labour won control of Croydon Borough Council in the 1994 election, Davies became Chairman of the Housing Committee, and in 1996 was elected as Leader of the Council. He was chair of the Housing Committee of the London Boroughs Association -the predecessor of London Councils from 1996 to 1997.^[1]

Elections to Parliament

At the 1987 general election, Davies contested the very safe Conservative seat Croydon South, coming third but increasing the Labour vote from 3658 to 4679 or 31% compared to a national increase in the Labour vote of 3.2%. In 1992, he stood in another Conservative safe seat Croydon Central constituency coming second but achieving a 4.1% swing to Labour compared with a national average of 1.9% swing to Labour. At the 1997 general election, following the retirement of the incumbent, he overturned the Conservative majority of 14,661 and was elected as Croydon Central's MP with Labour majority of 3,897, a swing to Labour of 15.5% compared to a national swing of 10%.Davies was re-elected in 2001 with 47.2% of the vote and a majority increased to 3,984. At the 2005 election his vote fell by 1,700 and the Conservative candidate Andrew Pelling gained 2,300 to take the seat with a majority of 75 votes.^[4] Davies was re-elected in 2001 with 47.2% of the vote and a majority increased to 3,984 -a swing of 0.8% to Labour compared with a national swing of 1.7% to the Conservatives. At the 2005 election the Conservative candidate Andrew Pelling took the seat on a 4.5% swing with a majority of 75 votes. The national swing was 3.1% to the Conservatives. Davies was subsequently selected for the Labour seat of Swansea West following the retirement of the constituency's MP of 45 years, Alan Williams. In the General Election of May 2010, he won with a majority of 504, following a swing to the second placed Liberal Democrats of 5.7%. The Liberal Democrats achieved a 3.6% swing nationally. In the 2015 General Election, following the collapse of the Liberal Democrats who came fourth, Davies was re-elected with a majority of 7036 (20%) over the Conservatives. Nationally the Lib-Dem vote fell by 15.1% but Davies achieved a 3.1% swing from the Conservatives to Labour compared with a 0.3% swing from the Conservatives to Labour nationally.

MP for Croydon Central

In his first term in Parliament, Davies was appointed Chair of the Environment Transport & Regions Departmental Committee and served on the Public Accounts Committee.

Re-elected in 2001, Davies was appointed NSPCC Parliamentary Ambassador in 2003 (−2005) following his proposed Regulation of Childcare Providers Bill in April 2003 which meant childminders were no longer permitted to smack children and parents had the right to see records of complaints about prospective childminders in respect of child safety. These provisions were subsequently adopted by Government. He then proposed the Physical Punishment of Children (Prohibition) Bill in July 2003 which made striking children across the head, with implimeents or shaking them illegal. He sought to address children's issues with a Healthy Children Manifesto (June 2004) to ban junk food advertising to children and regulate food labeling (adopted by Government 11/06) and a School Meals and Nutrition Bill in January 2005 that sought to include nutrition in OFSTED and to ban unhealthy vending (provisions adopted 3/05 & 10/05). He also sponsored the Regulation of Hormone Disrupting Chemicals Bill (May 2004) to impose precautionary bans on chemicals with evidence of being dangerous. This bill was incorporated in the EU REACH directive 09/06 and supported by the World Wide Fund for Nature UK. He was also involved in a high-profile campaign for the release of British detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay.^[5][6] Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg were finally released on 25 January 2005.^[7]

Davies represents Wales on the Council of Europe and has presented motions in Strasbourg calling for regulation of psychotherapists, scrutiny of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and clearer sugar content in processed foods labeling by expressing it in spoonfuls. He has also spoken out on child obesity, female genital mutilation and race discrimination in the police.

Davies serves on the Welsh Affairs Select Committee and the European Scrutiny Committee. He is active in the Chamber in particular in treasury and economic debates, but on a range of issues from student fees, to rape victims to arguing for a fairer deal for Wales and Swansea.

Davies was the only one of the five MPs representing Swansea and Neath Port Talbot who stood for re-election in 2015.

Private Members' Bills

On his re-election for Swansea West in 2010 Davies became the first newly elected MP to present a Private Members' Bill – The Credit Regulation (Child Pornography) Bill ^[8] in July 2010 that received national media coverage and cross party support including an Early Day Motion signed by 203 MPs. The Bill penalises credit and debit card companies for facilitating the downloading of child abuse images and requires that pre-paid credit cards below £100 are only issued when the identity of those buying them is recorded in order trace their source if used for illegal downloading or underaged purchases of weapons or alcohol.

His Multinational Motor Manufacturing Companies (Duty of Care to Former Employees) Bill 2012–13 ^[9] was designed to ensure that former Ford employees, including those from Swansea, who were transferred to an arms-length company called Visteon that Ford created, were compensated for the under-funding of their pension fund. This helped to secure the £29 million pay out in 2014 by Ford to former employees after a five-year campaign supported by an all-party group of MPs for which Davies was Labour lead.

Davies' Counsellors and Psychotherapists (Regulation) Bill 2013–14 ^[10] was designed to ensure that patients were treated by qualified practitioners using evidence based treatment. It explicitly seeks to ban so-called gay to straight conversion therapy, sexual grooming or activity with patients by practitioners.

Davies' Sugar in Food and Drinks (Targets, Labelling and Advertising) Bill 2014–15^[11] aims to help curb the obesity and diabetes epidemics by requiring food labeling to express added sugar content in teaspoonfuls, restricting high sugar products as presenting themselves as low fat in advertising and requiring the Secretary of State for Health to set annual targets for sugar content by food category recommended by the Food Standards Agency.

Following publicity of Davies' Bill (10 September 2014) to criminalise the distribution of sexually explicit images without consent on the internet – known as revenge porn –^[12] the Justice Secretary has announced that revenge porn will be criminalised.

In October 2014 he proposed a Bill to prohibit the advertising of electronic cigarettes and to prohibit their sale to children ^[13]

Davies' International Trade Agreement Scrutiny Bill^[14] would require scrutiny of, and enable amendments to, international trade agreements, including the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (the proposed EU-US Free trade deal) and the Investor State Dispute Settlements (which threatens to give multi-national companies the power to sue governments for laws they pass which protect consumers or workers and thereby affect future profit streams), by the European and UK Parliaments. Davies asked the Prime Minister to support his Bill in the House of Commons on the day it was presented on 27 October 2014 and David Cameron responded "there's an awful lot of scare stories going round and this greater scrutiny can lay some of those to rest".

Voting record

In the House of Commons, Davies was a loyal Labour backbencher, hardly ever voting with the opposition against the Labour government and whip. He supported Labour in most of the major parliamentary rebellions, including the Iraq war, but opposed the government in voting for an all-elected second chamber during the Reform of the House of Lords.^[15] Since returning in 2010, he has voted against the Labour Whip only twice: he voted against having Westminster elections and Welsh Assembly election on the same day and against a free trade deal with Colombia because of the widespread killing and persecution of trade unionists.

Expenses and deletion of key details from Wikipedia ahead of the 2015 election

Since his re-election in 2010 for Swansea West Davies’ MP’s costs have been in the lower quartile of MPs expenses and relatively lower than for his previous constituency Croydon Central which has a third bigger population and the Home Office's UK Immigration Centre in it. For the year 2004–05, Davies' MP costs, including staff and offices in Parliament and his constituency, were the highest in the country.^[15] Davies said "this shows I was one of the most hard-working MPs in Britain."^[16] According to the Daily Telegraph this included over £20,000 on a central London flat 12 miles from his consistency home and taxi expenses he should not have been entitled to claim because of his second home^[17] He also spent £38,750 on postage which he claimed were the result of the Croydon Central constituency being virtually the biggest and, due to the Lunar House Home Office Immigration Department, arguably the busiest in the UK. "Somebody has got to do the most work. I am proud it was me," he said.^[18] Davies repaid £156 used to post his annual report calendars by prepaid envelopes instead of stamps ^[17] Davies spent £2,285 on his kitchen and £1,500 on his living room at the taxpayers’ expense.^[19]

The Wikipedia article about him was one of a number edited ahead of the 2015 General Election by computers inside Parliament, an act which the Daily Telegraph says "appears to be a deliberate attempt to hide embarrassing information from the electorate." In Davies's case, the information deleted related to his expenses.^[19]

MP for Swansea West

Davies served as a school governor at Dylan Thomas Comprehensive School, Swansea. In July 2007, he was selected to succeed Alan Williams MP, the Father of the House, as Labour's candidate for the Swansea West constituency at the 2010 general election.^[20] The contest generated a record 80% member participation and a clear result, and he was strongly endorsed by Alan Williams,^[20] and by Assembly Minister Andrew Davies.^[21] On 6 May 2010, Davies was first elected MP for Swansea West with 12,335 votes and a majority of 504.^[22]

References

External links

• Geraint Davies MP official constituency website
• Geraint Davies MP Welsh Labour Party profile
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record