Caroline Pidgeon

Caroline Valerie Pidgeon
MBE
Leader of London Liberal Democrats
Assumed office
1 May 2008
Preceded by Mike Tuffrey
Member of the London Assembly
for the London-wide
Assumed office
1 May 2008
Preceded by Geoff Pope
Graham Tope
Sally Hamwee
Southwark Borough Councillor
for Newington ward
In office
7 May 1998 – 6 May 2010
Succeeded by Catherine Bowman
Personal details
Born (1972-09-29) September 29, 1972
Southampton, Hampshire, United Kingdom
Nationality British
Political party Liberal Democrats
Spouse(s) Paul
Children 1
Occupation politician
Website Caroline Pidgeon

Caroline Valerie Pidgeon MBE (born on 29 September 1972) is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom and the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the London Assembly.

Political career

Pidgeon was previously a councillor in Southwark from 1998 until 2010 where she became Cabinet Member for children and young people and was deputy leader of the council. As the third person on the Liberal Democrat's party list, she was elected as a London-wide member of the London Assembly in 2008. She also stood in the Lambeth and Southwark constituency, where she came second to Valerie Shawcross (Labour).

Pidgeon served as Chair of the London Assembly's Transport Committee in 2009–10, having previously served as vice-chair during 2008–09. She is also a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In April 2009 she launched the One hour bus ticket campaign, a scheme which would allow Londoners to travel for up to an hour on a single bus ticket.

She was the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Vauxhall parliamentary constituency in the 2010 General Election.

Pidgeon has been a Trustee of the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education since 2005 and was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for public and political service.[1]

In 2015 she declared her intention to seek the Liberal Democrat nomination for the 2016 Mayor of London election as well as putting herself forward for the Liberal Democrat Assembly list as well as many other candidates including Rob Blackie, Emily Davey and fellow incumbent Steven Knight. She was selected as the mayoral candidate and first on the list of Assembly candidates.

Policy positions

Housing
Investing billions raised by continuing the Olympic Games precept to build 50,000 council homes to rent and 150,000 for sale or for private rent including rent-to-buy for first time buyers – with a City Hall building company and a skills academy to train construction workers.
Cracking down on rogue landlords who rip off private tenants, by extending mandatory registration and offering long tenancies, curbing unfair letting agent fees and giving tenants extra rights when landlords sell up.
Policing
Recruiting 3,000 more police on the streets, focused on transport hot-spots, and bring back local policing, tackling gang problems and improving our safety and security to make us feel safer in our daily lives.
Protecting young people from knife crime, with knife arches and education programmes in schools and youth workers in A&E, to break the cycle of gang violence.
Transport
Half price tube, DLR and TfL Overground fares before 7.30am and a one-hour bus ticket, while cutting wasteful projects by Transport for London and sacking train companies that fail.
Re-zoning tube and rail stations to reduce excessive fares, maintaining investment in extending the tube and securing Crossrail 2 funding.
Cutting congestion on our roads, encouraging cycling and improving safety.
Jobs
Keeping London at the heart of Europe, benefiting our economy from inward investment and open trading internationally.
Training more young people in the skills of the future, supporting small business and growing job opportunities in the new digital technologies.
Children
Wrap-around childcare for parents working long hours and training more child minders, funded through a new London Children's Fund from a tourist levy on hotels like in Paris and New York.
Health and the environment
Switching London’s buses and taxis to be fully electric and helping to switch commercial vans too.
Cutting congestion by charging extra for non-essential workplace parking in central London and bringing in a new congestion zone around Heathrow.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 60367. p. 21. 29 December 2012.

External links

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