Lucy Allan (politician)

Lucy Elizabeth Allan (born 2 October 1964) is a Conservative Party British politician, who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Telford, and a family rights campaigner. She was a member of Wandsworth London Borough Council from 2006 to 2012. She was elected at the 2015 general election[1] as the first female MP to represent the Telford constituency,[2] and was re-elected in 2017[3] and again in 2019, with an increased majority of 25.6%.[4] Since 26 February 2020, she has served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the House of Commons.[5]

Lucy Allan

MP
Allan in 2017
Parliamentary Private Secretary to the
Leader of the House of Commons
Assumed office
26 February 2020
Preceded byVictoria Prentis
Member of Parliament
for Telford
Assumed office
7 May 2015
Preceded byDavid Wright
Majority10,941 (25.6%)
Personal details
Born
Lucy Elizabeth Allan

(1964-10-02) 2 October 1964
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
Political partyConservative
Children1
Alma materDurham University
Kingston University
WebsiteOfficial website

Early life and career

Lucy Allan was born in Cheltenham on 2 October 1964,[6] the daughter of a farmer and a teacher, and grew up near Totnes, Devon.[7] She is related to the Scottish radical socialist suffragette Janie Allan, whose family owned the Allan Line shipping company.[8][9]

Allan was educated at Durham University and Kingston Law School. She has a degree in anthropology and a master's degree in employment law.[10][11]

She joined Price Waterhouse as a trainee in 1987,[10][12] where she qualified as a Chartered Accountant and specialised in business turnaround, and in 1994 she further qualified as a Chartered Secretary in the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.[10]

In 1994, she moved into Investment Management, reaching director level, working for UBS Warburg, Gartmore Investment, De La Rue, Mercury Asset Management and First State Investments.[10] While Head of Investment Trusts at First State Investments, which ran the Scottish American Investment Company (SAINTS) and Scottish Oriental Smaller Companies Trust,[13] she was suspended in September 2003 over alleged plagiarism in statements issued by SAINTS.[14][15] She was made redundant in January 2004, after First State Investments ceased to manage SAINTS.[14]

In 2004, Allan began a master's degree in employment law and set up her employment law consultancy,[10][11][16] specialising in discrimination and maternity issues.[14] She became a non-executive director of Wandsworth NHS primary care trust in 2009.[17] She has served as an employment tribunal panellist.[18]

Political career

Allan was elected as a local councillor to Wandsworth London Borough Council in 2006, representing the Southfields ward, and served until 2012.[19][20][6]

In March 2013 she was selected as the Conservative Party parliamentary candidate to contest the marginal constituency of Telford in the 2015 general election.[20][21] She advocated a direct rail link to London from the town[22] and aimed to tackle the high rate of youth unemployment in Telford.[23]

Family First Campaign

After Allan made a visit to her GP seeking help with symptoms of depression following a family bereavement in 2010,[24] Wandsworth Council launched a child protection investigation, claiming Allan's 10-year-old son was at risk of significant harm. In the wake of the controversy which followed, Allan stood down from the Council, and from her directorship with the NHS. In 2011, following legal action by Allan, social services decided to take no further action.[25][26]

Based on her family's experience,[25] she founded Family First Group,[27] a lobby group which campaigns to reduce the number of children in state care, for improvements to the UK child protection system and support for families affected by it.[28]

In 2012 Allan fronted a media campaign on child protection injustice, which included an appearance on ITV's This Morning.[29][30] She used the media coverage to build a political profile for the Family First Campaign, working with Ministers, children's charities, and families to identify and remedy shortcomings in the child protection system.[31] She participated in an edition of ITV's Exposure documentary series on this subject on 15 July 2014, Don't Take My Child.[26]

Death threat controversy

In December 2015 Allan posted on Facebook an email she said she received from a constituent; the email was edited and ended with the words "unless you die". Allan later acknowledged that she had added those words to the email (saying she had taken them from a different email) – leading to accusations of her faking a death threat.[32][33][34] Allan temporarily deactivated her Facebook and Twitter accounts following the incident.[35] Allan later apologised for creating a "misleading impression", and said the controversy was not about her use of social media, but due to "activists unhappy they didn't get the MP they wanted".[36]

Allegations of bullying staff

In December 2015 Allan was accused of bullying members of staff,[37] and leaving a series of voicemail messages to a sick employee allegedly including a threat of dismissal.[38][39] On 21 December 2015, a statement about the allegations was published on Allan's website but deleted later in the day. The statement apologised for Allan's voicemail messages, which were publicly released, but stated the bullying allegations were unfounded and was critical of a former employee; the London Evening Standard characterised the statement as "a long rebuttal".[40][41] Later in January 2016, Allan acknowledged sending the voicemails was "stupid" and she regretted shouting at the employee, but denied her actions amounted to bullying.[42]

NHS junior doctors strike

In April 2016 Allan used Facebook to say: "Hard-working people in Telford don't get why privileged trainee doctors, on course to earn £100,000 plus, will hold NHS to ransom and deprive ordinary people of emergency care. I don't get it either." Her comments were criticised by junior doctors, with one saying that many of her fellow graduates were still junior doctors who can work “horrific shift patterns” and move hospital every 12 months.[43]

Advancing "libertarian agenda"

In January 2016 Allan stated that on national issues her approach in general is to advance within parliament the "libertarian agenda", to prevent the increasing influence of the state. For example, she was against a sugar tax that was under consideration by her party.[44] Allan voted to leave the EU in the June 2016 referendum.[45]

In June 2016 Allan introduced a private member's bill to repeal provisions in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 to require staff to report possible signs of extremism or radicalisation amongst primary and nursery school aged children, following a number of high-profile cases where the provision was inappropriately used in relation the government's Prevent strategy.[46]

European Union

Allen is a supporter of Brexit, and has argued that the country must be prepared to walk away with a no-deal if necessary.[47] In April 2019, Allan welcomed whom she called the "fantastic" candidates from the Brexit Party ahead of that year's European elections.[48] She defended the comment after being criticised by Tory loyalists, saying that party loyalties would be "eclipsed" by the Brexit issue at the ballot box.[49]

Retweet of doctored Keir Starmer video

On 14 May 2020, Allan was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions.[50] Allan was reprimanded for her actions by Conservative whips, but has yet to apologise.[51]

Personal life

Allan is married to a stockbroker and has a son.[7][18] They live in Southfields, Wandsworth.[24] Allan also has a constituency house in Lawley Bank, Telford.[2]

gollark: ubq323, tty0, irc.osmarks.tk, the osmarks.tk secondary, the fake one for services.
gollark: Exciting news: as is inevitable APIONET has reached 5 servers.
gollark: Because it's ”””more secure”””, even though *no* existing commercial 2FA service sends out temporary passwords over APIONET.
gollark: You should give them internet connectivity too.
gollark: Which should already be installed.

References
  1. "Telford". BBC News. Archived from the original on 15 July 2015.
  2. "Profile: Telford's new MP Lucy Allan bags her seat in the new Parliament". Shropshire Star. 23 May 2015. Retrieved 21 December 2015.
  3. "Telford". BBC News. Archived from the original on 19 July 2017.
  4. "Telford". BBC News.
  5. "Lucy appointed PPS to the Leader of the House". Lucy Allan MP.
  6. Lucy Allan (27 November 2007). "LUCY ALLAN – Curriculum Vitae". Google Sites. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  7. "About Lucy". Lucy Allan. 2009. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  8. Thom Kennedy (6 April 2015). "Telford: Battle on for key seat". Shropshire Star. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  9. MP, Lucy Allan. "And this my great aunt".
  10. "CV". Lucy Allan. 2009. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  11. "Constituency profile: Telford – A genuine three-horse race, say bookies". Shropshire Star. 30 March 2015. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  12. "Shortlist for Stratford-on-Avon". Conservative Home. Retrieved 14 March 2013.
  13. "First State steps up closed-end presence". Investment Week. 29 July 2002. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
  14. "Change of direction for executive at centre of plagiarism row". The Herald. Scotland. 23 March 2004. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
  15. Nick Gilbert (13 October 2003). "Pressure grows on Ivory over plagiarism gaffe". Financial News. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
  16. "Companies House – WORKPLACE LAW LIMITED". Companies House. Company No. 04948719. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  17. "Wandsworth Council press release". Wandsworth Council Government. Archived from the original on 23 April 2013. Retrieved 14 March 2013.
  18. "Lucy Allan". Wandsworth Conservatives. 19 April 2010. Archived from the original on 21 April 2010.
  19. "Southfields ward results 2010 - Wandsworth Borough Council". Wandsworth Council. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
  20. "Lucy Allan selected for Telford". Conservatives. Conservative Party. 27 March 2013. Archived from the original on 2 April 2013.
  21. "Would-be MP is campaigning to make hospital parking free". Shropshirestar.com. 25 January 2014. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  22. "writes to Transport Secretary about direct rail link". Lucy Allan. Lucyallan.com. 16 January 2014. Archived from the original on 20 October 2014. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  23. "Campaigns". Lucy Allan. Lucyallan.com. Archived from the original on 20 October 2014. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  24. Taylor, Rebecca (18 December 2015). "Former Wandsworth councillor Lucy Allan MP at centre of phone message bullying scandal launched legal action against Tory Council to court over fitness to parent investigation". Wandsworth Guardian. Retrieved 21 December 2015.
  25. "Mother branded danger to her son by a psychiatrist they'd never met". Evening Standard. London. 11 April 2012. Retrieved 8 December 2015.
  26. "Exposure: Don't Take My Child". ITV. 30 June 2014. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
  27. "ABOUT". Family First Group. Archived from the original on 10 December 2015. Retrieved 8 December 2015.
  28. "Former councillor launches child protection petition". Wandsworth Guardian. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
  29. Rucki, Alexandra (2 May 2012). "Former councillor launches UK child protection petition". Wandsworth Guardian. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
  30. Cavendish, Camilla (12 April 2012). "A depressing tale of a mother seeking help". The Times. Retrieved 15 May 2017. (subscription required)
  31. "Improving Child Protection". Facebook.com. Retrieved 14 March 2013.
  32. Jon Stone, "Tory MP Lucy Allan pulls out of BBC interview after being told she can’t veto questions", The Independent, 22 January 2016
  33. "Telford MP Lucy Allan defends adding death threat". BBC. 7 December 2015. Retrieved 8 December 2015.
  34. Matt Dathan (9 December 2015). "Tory MP defends faking death threat over Syria air strikes vote". The Independent. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
  35. Steerpike (8 December 2015). "Fake death threat Tory MP wipes herself from the web". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 9 December 2015. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
  36. "Telford MP Lucy Allan tells of 'weirdest week' as protest is launched". Shropshire Star. 14 December 2015. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  37. Hughes, Laura (17 December 2015). "Conservative MP Lucy Allan facing allegations of bullying members of staff". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  38. "Conservative MP Lucy Allan 'threatened to sack sick employee'". BBC. 17 December 2015. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  39. Mason, Rowena (18 December 2015). "Tory MP Lucy Allan should resign over alleged bullying, say two former aides". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
  40. Watts, Joseph (21 December 2015). "'Bully' storm MP Lucy Allan refutes staffer's claims in online post... which is later deleted". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 21 December 2015.
  41. Hughes, Laura (21 December 2015). "Conservative MP facing allegations of bullying staff criticises her alleged victim in deleted statement". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 21 December 2015.
  42. "My actions were stupid, Telford MP Lucy Allan admits". Shropshire Star. 18 January 2016. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
  43. "Lucy Allan MP under fire over junior doctors Facebook posts". Shropshire Star. 2 May 2016.
  44. "Lucy Allan MP: It is time to get back to work". Shropshire Star. 18 January 2016. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
  45. "Telford MP Lucy Allan will vote to leave the EU". Shropshire Star. 15 January 2016. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
  46. "Telford MP Lucy Allan tables Parliamentary bill over school counter-terrorism measures". Shropshire Star. 7 March 2017. Retrieved 13 May 2017.
  47. Growcott, Mat. "Brexit White Paper: Time to get tough on Europe, says Telford MP Lucy Allan". www.shropshirestar.com.
  48. "Conservative MP Lucy Allan welcomes Brexit Party candidates - BBC News". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
  49. Johnston, John. "Tory splits erupt once again as MP hails 'fantastic' Brexit Party candidates". PoliticsHome.com. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
  50. The Guardian. 14 May 2020 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/14/labour-urges-tory-mps-to-admit-keir-starmer-video-was-doctored. Retrieved 14 May 2020. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  51. Peter Walker; Steven Morris (14 May 2020). "No 10 rebukes Tory MPs over misleading Keir Starmer video". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
David Wright		 Member of Parliament
for Telford
2015–present		 Incumbent
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