Seb Dance

Sebastian 'Seb' Dance is a British politician who currently serves as a Member of the European Parliament for the London region for the Labour Party. He was elected in 2014.^[1] He sits on the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) and the European Parliament Committee on Development (DEVE).

He is Co-Ordinator (leader and spokesperson) for the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) Group in the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into Emission Measurements in the Automotive Sector (EMIS), which was set up in to develop recommendations for EU institutions and Member States in response to the Volkswagen emissions scandal.

Early and personal life

Dance was born in Roehampton, in the London Borough of Wandsworth.

He studied at the University of Manchester. Following his studies, he was a sabbatical officer at the Manchester Student Union, leading campaigns and overseeing student participation in the merger between the Victoria University of Manchester and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.

He lives with his partner, Spencer Livermore, in London, who is the currently a partner at Britain Thinks.

Previous Work

Prior to becoming an MEP, Dance worked for the development charity ActionAid UK, working on campaigns for structural changes to alleviate poverty and hunger around the world. He worked on a long-running campaign against tax avoidance by large multi-national companies.

Before joining ActionAid UK he worked for TLG, a small communications company working with clients in the public, private and voluntary sector on a range of campaigns.

Before this he worked as an advisor to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland between 2007 and 2009, when the final parts of devolution as part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement – policing and criminal justice powers – were being delivered by the Labour Government.

European Parliament

Dance was elected to the European Parliament in 2014.

On entering the European Parliament, he was appointed to the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, responsible for a wide range of policy areas including air and water pollution, waste management, and climate change.

He also sits on the European Parliament Committee on Development, overseeing the spending commitments and priorities of the EU’s development budget.

Dance was appointed as a shadow rapporteur for the revision of the National Emissions Ceiling Directive (NECD), which aims to improve levels of air quality by regulating the emissions of harmful pollutants. This is particularly important issue for London, where over 3,000 people are dying prematurely each year as a result of exposure to poor air quality.^[2] He became the S&D spokesperson on air quality following his appointment as a Shadow Rapporteur on the NECD.

Following the "Dieselgate" scandal involving the use of so-called cheat devices in Volkswagen cars the European Parliament voted to set up a committee of inquiry to look into the scandal, the extent to which EU institutions acted on knowledge of the presence of software to limit emission abatement technology in the automotive industry and to provide recommendations on how to prevent a similar scandal in the future. He was appointed by his group colleagues in the Committee to be the Co-Ordinator for the S&D group on the committee, meaning he chairs the delegation of S&D MEPs in the committee and is the group's spokesperson on the committee.

He is also a shadow rapporteur on a proposal for an integrated approach to tackle the link between conflict and the trade of minerals extracted from affected areas.

References