This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2008) (Find sources: David Howarth – news, books, scholar)

David Howarth MP
Member of Parliament for Cambridge
Incumbent
Assumed office  5 May 2005
Preceded by	Anne Campbell
Majority	4,339 (10.0%)
Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Justice.
Incumbent
Assumed office  2009
Born	10 November 1958 (1958-11-10) (age 51) Wednesbury, Staffordshire
Nationality	British
Political party	Liberal Democrat
Alma mater	University of Cambridge Yale University
Signature
Website	David Howarth MP

David Ross Howarth (born 10 November 1958) is a British Liberal Democrat politician and Member of Parliament (MP) for Cambridge since 2005.

Contents 1 Education 2 Political career 3 Interests and membership 4 Personal life 5 Notes 6 External links

[edit] Education

David Howarth grew up on Mossley Estate, a council estate in Bloxwich in Staffordshire, going to Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall. Attending Clare College, Cambridge, he was President of Union of Clare Students. He gained a BA in Law in 1981. He then won a scholarship to Yale Law School, gaining an LLM in 1983. In 1985, he gained an MPhil from Yale University in Sociology.

[edit] Political career

Howarth was a member of Cambridge City Council from 1987 to 2004, becoming its leader when the Liberal Democrats took control in 2000. In the 2005 general election he was elected Member of Parliament for Cambridge, defeating Labour MP Anne Campbell with a majority of 4,339 votes (and winning 44% of the votes cast). He is the first Liberal or Liberal Democrat to win Cambridge since the 1906 general election.

Howarth served on the Liberal Democrats' Federal Executive and Federal Policy Committees during the 1990s. He was a leading opponent within the Lib Dems of closer links to the Labour Party after the 1997 General Election, bringing him into conflict with Paddy Ashdown.

In the Liberal Democrat leadership election following Charles Kennedy's resignation in early 2006, Howarth was active in supporting Chris Huhne's campaign.

His performances in Parliament were recognised in 2006 when he was shortlisted for The House Magazine's 'Backbencher of the Year award'. The citation read "Brought MPs’ attention to the ‘hidden’ effects of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill". This was after he highlighted the side-effects of the original bill, which as originally drafted, would "give ministers power to alter any law passed by Parliament". Since "the Bill, bizarrely, even applies to itself, so that ministers could propose orders to remove the limitations" that were in the original bill, it would have effectively given unlimited power to ministers, and made Parliament redundant. Howarth described the original bill as an "Abolition of Parliament Bill", and successfully lobbied for significant changes before it was passed into law. [1]

After his election, he became a Liberal Democrat spokesperson on local government and then energy, before specialising in shadowing the Ministry of Justice, as the Liberal Democrat Shadow Solicitor General between 2007 and 2009. Since January 2009, he has been the Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Justice.

He was one of the relatively few MPs not implicated in the 2009 expenses scandal, being singled out by The Guardian as one of the "Angels" for having " not claimed a penny in second home allowances" and commuting the 60 miles from Cambridge to Westminster.^[1]

He was a lecturer in Land Economy, Law and Economics at the University of Cambridge between 1988 and 2005, where he has been a Fellow of Clare College since 1985. He specialised in constitutional law and tort law. He stood for the Cambridgeshire seat of Peterborough in 1997, and had stood for the Cambridge seat in 1992 and 2001, before finally winning it in 2005.

On 5 November 2009, he announced that he would be standing down as MP for Cambridge at the next election, citing a desire to return to academia. ^[2]

[edit] Interests and membership

Howarth is a member of Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International. In 1995 he won the Butterworth's Prize for best new legal textbook.

[edit] Personal life

David Howarth has two children and is married to Edna Howarth. Edna Howarth is a magistrate in Cambridge Magistrates' Court who was notably involved in the sentencing of Stephen Fry for a speeding offence.^[3][4]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/17/mps-pay-expenses-poll-tax
2. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8345355.stm
3. ^ House of Commons (2008). Hansard, May 6 2008, Column 586
4. ^ BBC News (2002). "Comic Fry keeps licence", December 23 2002. Accessed May 7 2008.

[edit] External links

• David Howarth MP official site
• David Howarth MP profile at the site of the Liberal Democrats
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: David Howarth MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - David Howarth MP
• The Public Whip - David Howarth MP voting record
• BBC Politics page

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Anne Campbell	Member of Parliament for Cambridge 2005–present	Incumbent