Description

Admin History:

Clive Stafford Soley was born on 7th May 1939 and educated at Strathclyde and Southampton Universities. Soley was a probation officer for the Inner London Probation Service from 1970-1979, and a councillor in Hammersmith from 1974-1978. In the 1979 general election he stood as the Labour candidate for the constituency of Hammersmith North, winning the seat; he held it until 1997 when he stood for the Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush constituency, winning and holding the seat from 1997-2005. In 2005 he was created Baron Soley, of Hammersmith in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

During his time in politics he held various positions of note: from 1981-1984 he was the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland; he was the opposition spokesman on home affairs from 1984-1987, and then housing from 1987-1992. He was Chair of Northern Ireland Affairs 1995-1997, and Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party 1997-2001. He has been a member of numerous Parliamentary committees including the Constitutional Affairs Committee (Commons) (Jan 2003-Jul 2005), the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform (Jun 2002-May 2005), the Joint Committee on the Draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill (Feb-May 2005), the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee (Lords) (Feb 2009-May 2013), the Inquiries Act 2005 Committee (Lords) (Jul 2013-Feb 2014), the Arctic Committee (Lords) (Jun 2014-Feb 2015) and the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee (Lords) (from Jun 2015).

Outside of politics he has held the posts of Chairman of the Arab-Jewish Forum, Chairman of the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal, and Chairman and Director of the Good Governance Foundation. He was also Campaign Director of Future Heathrow, a group in favour of the extension of Heathrow airport. His political interests concern civil liberties, the environment, Northern Ireland and foreign policy.

Description:

Collection includes press cuttings and other material collected as evidence relating to the Freedom and Responsibility of the Press Bill, 1992 which he sponsored and which led to the formation of ‘PressWise'. Also includes draft version of the book subsequently published as 'Regulating the Press' in 2000. There is a small amount of material relating to his role as a Labour MP, including material relating to the selection process for the Mayor of London; Northern Ireland and terrorism; retailing planning forum; alleged police corruption; and Iraq/UN.