David Chidgey
George William David Chidgey, Baron Chidgey, was born on 9th July 1942, in Basingstoke. He is a Liberal Democrat politician, former member of Parliament for Eastleigh. He now sits in the House of Lords.
Political Career[edit]
Between the Seventies and the Nineties David Chidgey was a Councillor on New Alresford Town Council and Winchester City Council. From 1992 to 1994, he was appointed Regional Chairman of the Hampshire and Wight Liberal Democrats. He won the elections for the constituency of Eastleigh in Hampshire in the House of Commons in 1994, 1997 and also in 2001.
So from 2001 to 2005, he was a member of the Chairman's Panel, a Spokesman for Employment and Training, Transport, Trade and Industry, and also a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. From 2003 to 2005, he was appointed member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. In 2005 he was made a Life Peer as Baron Chidgey, of Hamble-le-Rice in the County of Hampshire.
In the House of Lords, he was Liberal Democrat spokesman in defence from 2005 to 2006. From 2006 to 2010 he was member of the EU Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Development Policy. From 2007, Baron Chidgey is a Council member of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa. In 2008 Chidgey was named the Chairman of the oversight committee for the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit, a think tank devoted to policy concerns throughout the Commonwealth. David is currently Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee on International Affairs.
Education[edit]
Baron Chidgey studied at Brune Park Community College in Gosport. Chidgey studied as a mechanical engineer at the Portsmouth Naval College 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 until 1994.
He is currently a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a Fellow of the Institute of Highways and Transportation, a Member of the Institute of Transport and a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers of Ireland, a Companion of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and a Companion of the Royal Aeronautical Society. He has managed major projects all over the world, working to provide water, electricity supplies and transport networks in countries as far flung as Bangladesh and Brazil, the Middle East and the forests of West Africa.
He has also been a senior advisor to government departments, both in the developing world and in Europe and has published a number of technical papers.
