Norman Lamb

Norman Peter Lamb (born 16 September 1957) is a British Liberal Democrat politician and solicitor. He has been the Member of Parliament for North Norfolk since 2001.
Lamb was a candidate in the 2015 Liberal Democrats leadership election and is currently the party's health spokesman. He served most recently as Minister of State for Care and Support in the Department of Health, and previously as Minister of State for Employment Relations in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and earlier as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government.

Lamb was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, the son of climatologist Professor Hubert Lamb and the great-grandson of the mathematician Sir Horace Lamb. He went to Wymondham College in Norfolk, then the University of Leicester, graduating with an LLB.

After his graduation, Lamb worked as a solicitor. He began to specialise in employment law whilst working for Steele and Co Solicitors (now called Steeles Law). His book, Remedies in the Employment Tribunal: Damages for Discrimination and Unfair Dismissal was published in 1998.

Lamb worked for a year as a researcher for Labour MP Greville Janner in the early 1980s. A meeting with Shirley Williams in Parliament at this time, shortly after the formation in 1981 of the SDP-Liberal Alliance, spurred Lamb into front line active politics and he was elected to Norwich City Council where he led the Lib Dem group until he stood down in 1991 in order to pursue his Westminster ambitions.

Having first stood for election in North Norfolk in 1992, when the Conservative majority was reduced, he came close to a major shock in the 1997 general election when he reduced a Conservative majority of 12,545 to only 1,293 votes. He was finally elected in 2001, at the third attempt, narrowly defeating the incumbent Conservative MP David Prior by 483 votes. He was re-elected in 2005 with a significantly increased majority of 10,606, despite an effort by the Conservatives and their candidate Iain Dale to unseat him in what was one of their foremost target seats. He was re-elected for a second time in 2010 with a majority of 11,626.

Norman Lamb's first appointment, after being elected, was as a Liberal Democrat spokesman on International Development. Soon after this, he was chosen by then party leader Charles Kennedy to act as his Parliamentary Private Secretary. After the 2005 general election, Lamb was promoted and appointed Liberal Democrat Trade spokesman (2005–2006), securing the endorsement of the Liberal Democrat Spring 2006 Conference for a policy to part-privatise the Royal Mail, and to use the proceeds to invest in a publicly owned Post Office network. In March 2006, he moved to the post of Chief of Staff to the newly elected leader, Sir Menzies Campbell. In December 2006, he became the party's Health spokesman and was succeeded by Ed Davey as Campbell's Chief of Staff. In 2009 he took up the case of an LBC broadcast by Jeni Barnett in which she cast doubt on the safety of the MMR vaccine, tabling an Early Day Motion criticising those involved.

At the 2010 General Election, Lamb was returned for a third term as North Norfolk's MP. Lamb secured a larger majority than before, both in percentage terms and in absolute votes. Following the formation of the Cameron Ministry in May 2010, Lamb was appointed a parliamentary private secretary to Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nick Clegg.

On 3 February 2012, Norman Lamb was promoted to the role of junior minister in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills after Ed Davey was appointed Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change following the resignation of Chris Huhne consequent on his prosecution and resignation from Parliament.

In January 2015, The Daily Telegraph highlighted a £497,000 grant to upgrade Sheringham railway station in Lamb's constituency as an example of non-essential money being spent in marginal Coalition constituencies ahead of the General election and accused the government of "electioneering on the taxpayer". Lamb had announced the additional spend as "fantastic news" for the area, with Downing Street subsequently denying that either the funding or Lamb's role in announcing the funding was linked to electoral objectives.

At the 2015 General Election, Lamb was returned to Westminster with a significantly reduced majority. At the same election, the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party was reduced to eight members; Nick Clegg resigned the day after, on 8 May. Lamb stood in the subsequent leadership election, in a contest he lost to Tim Farron in July.

He married Mary in 1984, and they have two sons. They live in Norwich. Their son Archie Lamb is co-founder of the independent record label Takeover Entertainment which promotes Tinchy Stryder.