Chris Huhne
Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh
In Politics
Chris has been Eastleigh’s MP for eight years, and served as the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change between 2010-2012.
After Chris’s election in 2005, Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader at the time, asked Chris to become Vince Cable’s deputy as Treasury spokesman for the party.
Chris ran for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats in early 2006, highlighting the need for fair and green taxes to help hard-working families and tackle climate change. He was the runner-up to Sir Menzies Campbell, who then appointed him Shadow Environment Food and Rural Affairs Secretary. Chris ran for the leadership again in Autumn 2007 following the resignation of Sir Menzies, coming second to Nick Clegg in December 2007. Chris then became Shadow Home Secretary speaking for the party on crime, policing, immigration and terrorism.
Although Chris has become an increasingly important national voice, he has always held regular surgeries in Eastleigh and put the interests of local people first.
Before entering Westminster, Chris served as an MEP in the European Parliament from 1999. During his time in Europe, Chris was the economic spokesman for the pan-European Liberal group, forced the European Central Bank to become more open, publishing forecasts each six months and proposed and won support for the first “sunset clauses,” which introduced into EU law time limits on the EU Commission’s. Chris also radically changed the EU Commission’s proposals for financial services laws that would have penalised small business.