Dan Norris

Dan Norris MP
File:Dan Norris MP.jpg
Member of Parliament for Wansdyke
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 May 1997
Preceded by	Jack Aspinwall
Majority	1,839 (3.6%)
Personal details
Born	(1960-01-28) 28 January 1960 London, England, UK
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	University of Sussex
Website	http://www.dannorris.org.uk/

Dan Norris (born 28 January 1960) is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Wansdyke since 1997, and is currently a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Early life

Dan Norris comes from a North East Somerset coal mining family. As a young child Dan lived with his grandparents where he witnessed his grandfather suffering a slow and painful death from lung disease contracted underground. Norris was educated at Chipping Sodbury Comprehensive School and the University of Sussex, where he read a Master's in Social Work (MSW). Dan is a former teacher and child protection officer having trained with the NSPCC.

Views on Children

Norris has a particular interest in child safety and regularly campaigns against child sexual abuse. He has co-written a free booklet on preventing child sexual abuse, and helped to distribute it to tens of thousands of parents. He also co-wrote and produced a booklet aimed at giving practical advice about self-defence against bullies. The booklet, entitled A Kick in the Bullies, includes diagrams of the best martial arts moves to use when faced with various bullying techniques.

Non-parliamentary activities

Norris was a councillor on Bristol City Council from 1989-92 / 1995-97 and Avon County Council from 1994–96, and he is a member of the GMB Union.

In the early 1990s Norris held public meetings in Keynsham and Radstock so that North East Somerset people could check and see if their names were on the Economic League (UK) blacklist which barred them from employment.

Parliamentary career

Norris first stood for parliament in the constituency of Northavon in 1987, losing against the conservative incumbent, Sir John Cope. In 1992, he was the Labour candidate for Wansdyke, but again lost against the conservative incumbent, Jack Aspinwall.

Norris contested the Wansdyke seat once more in the 1997 election, and took a traditionally safe Tory seat by 4,799 votes (overturning the Tory 11,770 vote majority in the 1992 election). He was an assistant whip from 2001 to 2003. In July 2007 he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. He previously held a similar role in support of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain. He currently has the only Labour seat in Somerset.

Despite his success in the 1997 general election, and his increased majority in 2001 (from 4,799 to 5,613), the 2005 election saw Norris' lead over the Conservatives fall to 1,839. Due to boundary changes, which will apply at the next general election, Norris may find it hard to hold his seat in the newly formed 'North East Somerset' because of a Conservative resurgence (shown in the May 2007 bi-elections) and the addition of traditionally Tory 'hotspots' that were before part of the 'Bath' constituency.

During the parliamentary year of 2006/07, Norris was serving as a backbench MP. Despite this he had the 4th highest expenditure, for any Member of Parliament. In total, Norris spent £172,733: £4,271 was spent on centrally purchased stationary, £16,287 on the associated postage cost, and £ 22,110 as part of the "Additional costs Allowance".

As a backbencher, prior to taking on a PPS role in June 2006, Dan Norris had the highest voting record in the current Parliament of any MP - attending 97% of all votes however since then his voting record has dropped to 83%. Dan Norris' voting records show that he is in favour of: crime reduction measures; a tougher line being taken against child sexual abuse; the smoking ban; the introduction of ID cards, rather than a UK Border police force; introducing additional GP hours to allow patient access during evenings and at weekends, patient choice of hospital, and cutting NHS waiting list times; introducing foundation hospitals; student top-up fees; anti-terrorism laws and migration controls; the Iraq war; replacing trident; the hunting ban and animal welfare measures; and gay rights.

Norris was the only MP of any political party in the whole of the West Country (and one of just 25 out of the 121 MP who voted on this bill) who voted for Freedom of Information laws to apply to MPs' allowances at the crucial Third Reading vote on this key issue on 18 May 2007.

In the reshuffle of June 2009 Norris entered the Government as a minister for the first time, becoming Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Norris has made headlines in the run up to the 2010 General election, by accusing a Conservative opponent of being too aristocratic to relate to ordinary people . Highlighting opponent's class has been a common, but controversial, campaigning technique in the UK .

Bibliography

• Violence Against Social Workers: The Implications for Practice, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1989 (with Carol Kedward).

External links

• Dan Norris official site
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Dan Norris MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Dan Norris MP
• Voting record at the Public Whip
• BBC Politics page

News items

• Attacked during outside TV broadcast, Gloucestershire in 2005