Wendy Chamberlain

Wendy Chamberlain
Born	20 December 1976
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh
Party	LibDem
Chief Whip of the Liberal Democrats In office 1 September 2020 - Present  Member of Parliament for North East Fife In office 12 December 2019 - Present

Wendy Anne Chamberlain is a Scottish Liberal Democrat politician serving as Chief Whip of the Liberal Democrats and the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Scotland and Wales since 2020. Chamberlain has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Fife since 2019.

Wendy Chamberlain was elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as the Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Fife in the UK/2019 General Election and served as the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Northern Ireland and International Development from January 2020 to September 2020.

Early life and career

Born in Greenock, Inverclyde, Wendy Chamberlain was the older of two daughters. She studied English at the University of Edinburgh, and was a member of the "Edinburgh University Footlights", a student-run musical-theatre group, and performed in a show with the group at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The daughter of a police officer, after finishing university she joined the police force. During her twelve years as a police officer, Chamberlain worked for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland and the Scottish Police College.

After leaving the police, Chamberlain worked as a Communications Lecturer at Fife College, before becoming a Training Manager for the Scottish Resettlement Centre, a Ministry of Defence contractor in Rosyth, and then a Capability Manager for British multinational alcoholic beverages company, Diageo. While working in the private sector, Chamberlain was a Member of the Chartered Management Institute and an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. In 2017, Chamberlain became a member of the board of the Camanachd Association, the world governing body of the Scottish sport of shinty, becoming the first female director of the Association.

Emergency Commons debate

On 4 November 2021, Wendy Chamberlain secured an emergency three-hour debate in the House of Commons following the Owen Paterson fiasco which took place on Monday, 8 November 2021.

Sleaze debate

Wendy Chamberlain opens (1:50 to 18:10) and closes (2:57:20 to 3:01:55) the sleaze debate

Boris Johnson was accused of “running scared” after he dodged scrutiny in Parliament by visiting a hospital in Northumberland, leaving cabinet colleague Stephen Barclay to face furious MPs.

There were cries of “Run, Boris, Run!” in the Commons chamber as Liberal Democrat chief whip Wendy Chamberlain told MPs:

“This is a prime minister who flew to Afghanistan to escape a vote on Heathrow when he was foreign secretary, and has driven to the northeast to escape questions today.

“This is almost the kind of behaviour we would expect to see in the Duma in Moscow, National People’s Congress in Beijing, not in the House of Commons.

“They say a fish rots from the head down, and I’m disappointed to see that the prime minister has chosen not to turn up today to answer questions… You can’t help but feel that he thinks the rules don’t apply to him.”

Conservative former chief whip Mark Harper told MPs:

“If the team captain gets it wrong, then I think he should come and apologise to the public and to this house, that’s the right thing to do in terms of demonstrating leadership."

Chair of the Commons Standards Committee, Chris Bryant MP, appealed for the government to table a motion to overturn last week’s vote and allow MPs to affirm his committee’s judgement that Owen Paterson’s behaviour was “inappropriate”.

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References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 8 November 2021.
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