By Jim Hollands
The Rt. Hon. Amber Rudd is a Conservative Party politician who was elected as Member of Parliament for the East Sussex constituency of Hastings and Rye at the May 2010 general election, defeating the incumbent Labour MP Michael Foster. Amber subsequently went on to retain the seat, with an increased majority in the 2015 general election
Amber Rudd was appointed Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on 11 May 2015. She was the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change from July 2014 until May 2015. She was elected Conservative MP for Hastings and Rye in 2010.
Her involvement with local environmental matters, which have always been one of the interests close to her heart, has been evident from the start. From 2010 to 2012 she was a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee. She then served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2012 to 2013, and as Assistant Whip from October 2013.
Her political career has been meteoric. Appointed to the Cabinet after the 2013 election, her position of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change gives her overall responsibility for the business of the Department of Energy & Climate Change and its policies which include overall strategy on energy, consumer and climate change policy, international climate change negotiations, energy bills and the Competition and Markets Authority investigation, also key decision making on major programmes and new policy in the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Locally she has championed the fishermen of Rye & Hastings, supported numerous local events with her presence, fought hard for and backed up the amazing projects by Rod Chapman to bring hundreds of jobs to the Rye Harbour Industrial area.
Her Career outside politics was just as progressive and successful. Graduating from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in history, Amber worked in investment banking in the City of London and New York, before moving into venture capital. She then set up a freelance recruitment business and wrote for financial publications, before being elected to Parliament in May 2010.
Our MP. lives in Hastings and has 2 children.
Despite her heavy ministerial work load Amber still finds time to help with her constituents problems. She is currently fighting the corner of John, Avril and David Percival, whose family business Bargain Box Newsagents, is under threat of closure due to a seemingly unfair business rate burden for air conditioning that has been imposed on them and not on others.
John is pinning his hopes on Amber getting a resolution of the problem, caused when Rother District Council submitted an assessment of the Bargain Box Premises to the Rating Officer.
I have met Amber Rudd on numerous occasions when covering events for “Rye’s Own” and “Hastings Town”. She always comes over as a sensible, unassuming person and has a quality not often associated with politicians, she listens.
As regular readers will know, I do not take sides in party politics, I have always been more interested in what the politician could do for Rye. We have been very fortunate with our last two MP’s., Both Michael Foster and Amber Rudd have been excellent constituency MP’s. I wondered if Amber would be able to keep up the pace and still look after her constituents when she became a member of the Cabinet but she seems to be able to cope very well. Could it be she is destined for even greater things?
The Duke of Wellington was MP for Rye before going on to Waterloo. Could it be that Rye will one day have a lady Prime Minister as it’s representative in Parliament?
From the March 2016 Issue of “Rye’s Own”
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