Colin Challen

Background

Challen was born in Scarborough, and educated at the Norton Secondary School in Norton-on-Derwent and the Malton Grammar School, before completing a philosophy degree at the University of Hull in 1983.

Education

University of Hull.

Career

In 1971, he was a supplier accountant for the Royal Air Force before becoming a postman in 1974. He set up business as a printer and publisher in 1982 until 1994 when he took up politics professionally as an organiser for the Labour Party. He was elected a councillor to Kingston upon Hull City Council for eight years from 1986.

Challen unsuccessfully stood for parliament at the 1992 general election in the constituency of Beverley.

He entered parliament at the 2001 general election for Morley and Rothwell following the retirement through ill health of Labour Member of Parliament John Gunnell. Colin Challen was elected with a majority of 12,090 and made his maiden speech on 25 June 2001, in which he spoke of Herbert Henry Asquith who was born in Morley.

He is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. On 29 January 2007 Challen announced that he would not contest the 2010 general election after a Boundary Commission review abolished his constituency, thus letting Editor Balls contest the new Morley and Outwood constituency, formed from a merger of parts of Morley and Rothwell and Balls" also abolished Normanton constituency.

In 2013 Challen opened an art gallery called "artHERENT" in Scarborough (North Yorkshire) Market, to display recent works.

The first exhibition, "Is there any hope for the dead? Reliquaries and other items" started in September 2013. In 2009, Challen tabled an early day motion calling for all internal United Kingdom flights to be phased out before the end of the year, in order to reduce greenhouse gases. He also urged Parliament to cut the national speed limit to 55 mph, and to dedicate two hours of prime-time television each week to explain the dangers posed by climate change.

Achievements

• He finished in third place and more than 22,000 votes behind the winner James Cran. Challen founded the All Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change in 2005, and has written that he believes the "catastrophic destabilisation of global climate represents the greatest threat that humanity faces." In 2004, Challen presented a Ten Minute Rule Bill introducing the idea of David Fleming"s TEQs scheme to Parliament, as a way of guaranteeing that promised emissions reductions would actually be achieved.

Membership

53rd United Kingdom Parliament. 54th United Kingdom Parliament]

A member of the League Against Cruel Sports for almost thirty years, he served on several select committees: The Environmental Audit Committee (since 2001), the Joint Committee on Consolidation of Bills (since 2001), the Unopposed Bills Panel (since 2004) and the DECC Select committee (2009/10). In local elections held in May 2011, Challen was elected as a Labour member of Scarborough Borough Council, representing Castle ward.