David Chidgey, Baron Chidgey

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David William George Chidgey, Baron Chidgey (born 9 July 1942) is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom. A former Member of Parliament (MP), he now sits in the House of Lords.

A chartered engineer, Chidgey was educated as a mechanical engineer at the Admiralty College, Portsmouth and then as a civil engineer at the Portsmouth Polytechnic. He worked for Hampshire County Council until 1973, and then as a consulting engineer with Brian Colquhoun and Partners.

[edit] Political career

Chidgey was a Councillor from the mid 1970s to the early 1990s on New Alresford Town Council and Winchester City Council. He contested the Hampshire Central European Parliament constituency at by-election in 1988 and at the 1989 European Parliament election. He was Regional Chair of the Hampshire and Wight Liberal Democrats from 1992 to 1994.

At the 1992 general election, he contested the Eastleigh constituency in Hampshire, finishing second behind the Conservative candidate, Stephen Milligan.^[1] After Miligan's death in 1994, Chidgey won the resulting by-election, squeezing the Conservatives into third place. He was re-elected in the 1997 and 2001 general elections and stood down at the 2005 general election.

In the House of Commons, he was a member of the Chairman's panel (2001–2005), an Employment & Training spokesman, Transport spokesman, Trade & Industry spokesman and a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (1999–2005) and of the Joint Committee on Human Rights (2003–2005).

On 13 May 2005 it was announced that Chidgey would be created a life peer, and on 17 June 2005 the peerage was created as Baron Chidgey, of Hamble-le-Rice in the County of Hampshire. In the House of Lords, he was Liberal Democrat spokesperson in defence from 2005 to 2006.