| The Right Honourable The Lord Alton of Liverpool |
|
|---|---|
| Member of Parliament for Liverpool Mossley Hill (Liverpool Edge Hill 1979–1983) |
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| In office 19 March 1979 – 1 May 1997 |
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| Preceded by | Sir Arthur Irvine |
| Succeeded by | constituency abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | David Patrick Paul Alton 15 March 1951 London[1] |
| Political party | None |
| Other political affiliations |
Liberal (1972–1988) Liberal Democrat (1988–1997) |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
David Patrick Paul Alton, Baron Alton of Liverpool (born 15 March 1951) is a British politician. He is a former Liberal Party and later Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) who now sits as cross bench member of the House of Lords. He was made a Life peer as Baron Alton of Liverpool, of Mossley Hill in the County of Merseyside in 1997. He is noted for his opposition to abortion. He has British and Irish citizenship.
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David Alton was educated at the Campion School, Hornchurch, Greater London, and Christ's College of Education, Liverpool. He began his career as a teacher and, in 1972, he was elected as a Liberal to Liverpool City Council as Britain's youngest City Councillor. He was elected as MP for Liverpool Edge Hill at a by-election in 1979, when he became the "Baby of the House".
When the Edge Hill constituency was abolished for the 1983 general election, he was elected as MP for the new Liverpool Mossley Hill constituency.
From 1979 to 1988 he was a Liberal MP, and served at various times as spokesman on the Environment, Home Affairs, Northern Ireland and as Chief Whip. In 1987 he resigned as chief whip to campaign for his unsuccessful private members' bill which aimed to stop late abortions.
The Liberal Party merged in 1988 with the SDP, and from 1988 to 1997 he served as a Liberal Democrat MP, but had difficult relations with parts of the party, especially over attempts to make the party adopt a pro-choice position on abortion.
He is known for his strongly Pro-Life position on abortion, which went against the pro-choice politics of some in his party. In 1992, he announced that he would not stand again as a Liberal Democrat after the Party made support for abortion a party policy for the first time. He stood down as an MP at the 1997 general election. He was given a peerage as a personal choice of John Major in the Dissolution Honours and took his seat in the House of Lords as a Cross-bencher.
In 1997, Lord Alton of Liverpool was appointed Professor of Citizenship at Liverpool John Moores University and founds the Foundation for Citizenship there. He chairs the Roscoe Lectures [2] which has been addressed by His Holiness, The Dalai Lama, amongst others.
Lord Alton is chairman of the British-DPRK All-Party Parliamentary Group, and visited Pyongyang in October 2010[3] when he had talks with leaders of the North Korean government including Choe Thae Bok, chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly,[4] the country's rubber-stamp parliament.
Lord Alton has been a key campaigner against the Labour Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, opposing the creation and use of animal human hybrid stem cells for medical purposes.[5]
Lord Alton established the successful lobby group for human rights, Jubilee Campaign, in 1987, with the support of numerous members of parliament. Since then, he has also co-founded Jubilee Action, a children's charity established to fulfil the humanitarian needs highlighted by the work of Jubilee Campaign.
In 2008, he publicly spoke out against the British Olympic Association when it forced athletes to sign an agreement forbidding them from criticizing China's human rights record before or during the 2008 Olympic games.[6]
He is a patron of the International Young Leaders Network.[7]
Lord Alton of Liverpool is also an accomplished author and has published several non-fiction titles:
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir Arthur Irvine |
Member of Parliament for Liverpool Edge Hill 1979 – 1983 |
Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament for Liverpool Mossley Hill 1983 – 1997 |
|
| Preceded by Andrew MacKay |
Baby of the House 1979 |
Succeeded by Stephen Dorrell |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by Alan Beith |
Liberal Chief Whip 1985 – 1987 |
Succeeded by Jim Wallace |