Maria Caulfield

Maria Caulfield MP
Member of Parliament for Lewes
Incumbent
Assumed office 8 May 2015
Preceded by	Norman Baker
Majority	1,083 (2.1%)
Personal details
Born	(1973-08-06) 6 August 1973 London, England
Political party	Conservative
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Website	Official website

Maria Colette Caulfield (born 6 August 1973) is a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. She was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lewes constituency in 2015.^[1]

Early life

Maria Caulfield was born in 1973 to Irish immigrant parents and grew up on a council estate in Wandsworth, London. Her father was from a farming family in Ireland but after emigrating worked as a builder while her mother was a nurse ^[2] and she considers herself to be working class. While in her teens her mother died from breast cancer^[2] and upon leaving school she became an NHS nurse.^[3] She has spoken before about her upbringing saying that she "grew up in a run-down area of South London where the only careers advice given to us was the phone number of the local council housing office for when you became a single mum and needed a council flat".^[3]

Career

As a nurse she eventually specialized in Cancer research and moved to the south coast of England where she worked at the Royal Sussex County Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital and then the Royal Marsden.^[3]

She became involved with the Conservative Party after joining a campaign to save local hospitals in the Brighton area.^[3]

In 2007 she was elected to serve on Brighton and Hove City Council for the previously safe Labour ward of Moulsecoomb. She served on the cabinet of the then Conservative administration of the council and held the Housing Portfolio. In the 2011 Brighton and Hove City Council election she lost her seat to the Labour Party candidate.

At the 2010 general election she unsuccessfully stood^[4] for the Caerphilly constituency, coming second to Wayne David of the Labour Party.^[5]

For several years she held the role of Deputy Regional Chairman for the South East Conservatives ^[6] and was a Co-ordinator in the NO2AV campaign in the 2011 AV referendum.

In 2013 she was selected for her local constituency of Lewes by the Lewes Conservative Association,^[3] and at the 2015 general election she overturned a 7,647 majority and defeated the incumbent Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker.^[7]

Personal life

She lives with her partner and fiancé Steve Bell who is an ex-serviceman and now works as a builder. He is also a Brighton and Hove City Councillor,^[10] as well as being very active in the voluntary party as President of the Conservative National Convention, the organizing body of the voluntary party.^[11]

Caulfield is an urban shepherdess, part of an environmental project which uses sheep and cattle to graze public open spaces.^[12] She also holds a non-executive director position on the board of the housing charity BHT Sussex.^[12]

As a football fan she supports Arsenal and Lewes F.C. as well as being a share holder of the latter.^[13]

She is a practising Catholic ^[14] and supports some Pro-Life issues such as lowering the current abortion time limit.^[15][16] She is also a member of the Conservative Christian Fellowship.^[14][17]

References