Andrew George
Andrew George is the Liberal Democrat MP for the St Ives constituency.
Andrew was born and brought up in the constituency, is third of eight sons and daughters of small-holding horticulturist (the late) Hugh and musician/teacher Diana George of Mullion. Schooled at state schools at Mullion, Cury and Helston he then studied at Sussex and Oxford (University College) Universities and worked in farming, research, community development work, environmental conservation, affordable housing and charity work before being elected to Parliament in May 1997 as the first non Conservative MP for the St Ives constituency for 68 years. He is married and has an adult daughter and son and continues to live and work in Cornwall.
Andrew is renowned as a successful campaigner and has a reputation for independent-mindedness and a record of rebelling against his Party whip in Parliament, especially during the years of the Coalition Government (2010-15) when he argued that his Party leadership were compromising far too much with the Conservatives.
He led successful parliamentary campaigns – e.g. to remove the Conservative’s 50% council tax subsidy for wealthy second home owners, for a new regulator to protect smaller farmers and other suppliers from the “bully-boy” behaviour of supermarket buyers (known as the Grocery Code Adjudicator) and has led other campaigns for safe registered nurse staffing on hospital wards, against the Conservative’s ‘Bedroom Tax’ and many other campaigns in the field of international development, environment, health, anti-poverty, anti-discrimination, housing and much else.
Andrew was Chief Executive of affordable housing charity Cornwall Community Land Trust and has run other research and campaign projects with the support of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and others. Since 2006 he has been the Chair of the British Association for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures.
You can follow Andrew's work in parliament via has Facebook page here.
Constituents can contact Andrew by emailing andrew.george.mp@parliament.uk
