Chris Mole

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Chris Mole MP
Member of Parliament for Ipswich
Incumbent
Assumed office 15 October 2001
Preceded by	Jamie Cann

Born	16 March 1958 (1958-03-16) (age 50) Bromley
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	University of Kent

Christopher David Mole, known as Chris Mole, (born March 16, 1958, Bromley) is the current member of Parliament for Ipswich in eastern England, and a member of the ruling Labour Party. He won the seat in the 2001 by-election held after the death of Jamie Cann and was re-elected in the General Election held in May 2005.

1 Early life
2 Parliamentary career
3 Voting Record
4 Personal life
5 External links
- 5.1 News items

[edit] Early life

Chris Mole went to the independent Dulwich College. He read for a BEng in Electronics from the University of Kent and moved to Ipswich in 1981 to work at the BT Laboratories at Martlesham Heath. During that time he served as Branch Secretary of the Research Branch of the white collar BT-only union then called the STE. It is now a cross industry union called Connect [1]. He was first elected to Suffolk County Council in 1985 and represented a central Ipswich division for 18 years. He was Deputy Chair of EEDA, the regional development agency for the East of England, from 1998 and was Leader of Suffolk County Council from 1993, named Council of the Year 2001, until his election as Member of Parliament. He was a governor of Handford Hall Primary School in Ipswich.

[edit] Parliamentary career

In the 2001 parliament, Chris Mole served as a member of the Select Committee that scrutinised the work of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Deregulation and Regulatory Affairs Select Committee and the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. He steered his Private Member's Bill onto the Statute Book where it became the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, extending the concept of legal deposit to electronic records; the Bill was strongly promoted by the British Library.

Chris Mole was appointed in June 2005 to the position of Parliamentary Private Secretary PPS to the Local Government Minister Phil Woolas. He resigned from this position on 6 September 2006 after signing a letter calling on Prime Minister Tony Blair to step down [2]. When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, Mole was recalled to a PPS position, taking the post of PPS to John Healey, the Minister of State for the Department for Communities and Local Government on 28 June 2007.

Since January 2007, Chris Mole has been a member of the Science and Technology Committee.

[edit] Voting Record

How Chris Mole voted on key issues since 2001 (They Work For You):

Has never voted on a transparent Parliament.
Voted for introducing a smoking ban.
Voted for introducing ID cards.
Voted for introducing foundation hospitals.
Voted for introducing student top-up fees.
Voted for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
Voted for the Iraq war.
Voted against investigating the Iraq war.
Voted for replacing Trident.
Voted for the hunting ban.
Voted for equal gay rights.

[edit] Personal life

He lives in east Ipswich with his wife Shona, a systems analyst for BT in Ipswich, and their two sons Edward (Ted), born January 1992, and Thomas (Tom), born September 1994. He married Shona Gibb in July 1996 in Ipswich. Their sons go to local state schools and Chris was a school governor for over ten years.