page_title: Lynne Featherstone
section_title: Member of Parliament
hierarchical_section_title: Lynne Featherstone / Member of Parliament
caption_attribution_description: English: A stakeboard showing support for the Liberal Democrat candidate Lynne Featherstone during the 2015 general election campaign, in the constituency of Hornsey &amp; Wood Green
context_page_description: Lynne Choona Featherstone, Baroness Featherstone, PC is a British Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords.
  A Member of the London Assembly from 2000 to 2005, she was Member of Parliament for Hornsey and Wood Green between 2005 and 2015, before being nominated for a peerage in the Dissolution Peerages List 2015. She was created Baroness Featherstone, of Highgate in the London Borough of Haringey, on 20 October.
  Under the Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010 she was appointed as a Home Office Minister with responsibility for criminal information and equalities, before being promoted, in 2012, Minister with responsibility for International Development. Previously she was Liberal Democrat spokesman for Youth and Equality issues, and chair of the Liberal Democrats technology board. As originator and architect of the same sex marriage law during the coalition, Featherstone launched the consultation by the UK Government on introducing same-sex marriage and was the first politician to take part in the Out4Marriage campaign, and returned to the Home Office as Minister of State in November 2014.
context_section_description: Featherstone first contested the Hornsey and Wood Green seat at the 1997 general election where she finished in third place some 25,998 votes behind the winner Barbara Roche. She again fought Hornsey and Wood Green at the 2001 general election, moving into second place and reducing Roche's majority to 10,614. In one of the largest swings at the 2005 general election, Featherstone defeated Roche with a majority of 2,395 votes.
  She made her maiden speech in Parliament on 24 May 2005. She was appointed as a LibDem junior Home Affairs spokesperson by Charles Kennedy in 2005, and to the environment audit select committee.
  She was co-chair of Chris Huhne's unsuccessful campaign to be leader of the Liberal Democrats following the resignation of Kennedy in January 2006. In March, following the election of Menzies Campbell as party leader, she was promoted to number two in the Liberal Democrat home affairs team and made London spokesperson. In December 2006, she succeeded Susan Kramer as the Liberal Democrat Shadow International Development Secretary, and two months later was succeeded by Tom Brake as London spokesperson.
  In 2007, following the resignation of Sir Menzies Campbell, she again chaired Chris Huhne's leadership election campaign. On 20 December 2007 the new Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who defeated Chris Huhne, made her Youth and Equalities spokesperson.
  On 5 February 2013, Featherstone voted in favour in the House of Commons Second Reading vote on same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom, the bill which she spearhead as Minister of State at the Home Office and got passed through the Commons despite Conservative backbench MP resistance. She was given a score of 93% in favour of lesbian, gay and bisexual equality by Stonewall.
  In the 2015 general election, she lost her seat to Labour's Catherine West MP.
caption: A 2015 LibDem election stakeboard for Lynne Featherstone
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