Rebecca lives in Castle Point with her husband Frank and their young son. She was elected to represent the constituency of Castle Point at the May 2010 general election.
Rebecca's Experience
Rebecca has spent the majority of her working life in business, principally with Phillimore & Co, specialist publishers of British local history (including publishing titles on Hadleigh, Thundersley, Canvey Island and Daws Heath). She joined the Board as Marketing Director in 1997, a position she held until the sale of the firm in 2007. Having been an employer, Rebecca believes that now, more than ever, we need people with her sort of practical business experience in the House of Commons.
Rebecca also has experience of local government having been a councillor for four years. She is strongly committed to "localism" believing that turnouts at local elections will be higher, and decisions will be better, if local communities get back real power on the decisions that affect them.
Prior to the 2001 General Election Rebecca took a sabbatical to work in the Conservative Research Department where among other things she helped fight the Labour party's mishandling of the Foot & Mouth epidemic and campaigned against damaging greenfield development.
More recently Rebecca was the Political Special Adviser to Tim Yeo MP while he was Shadow Secretary of State for DTI, Health, Education, Transport and Environment respectively, in the last Parliament. Since then she has worked at the House of Commons on a part-time basis dealing with constituent's problems: "to try to a get a solid grounding in the role of MP, a job for which there isn't any formal training."
Campaigning in Castle Point
Rebecca has been campaigning hard on local issues, fighting for the protection of Castle Point's green belt from Labour's centrally-imposed building targets, working with residents groups against inappropriate industrial development on Canvey Island, especially Methane storage, and seeking improved infrastructure across the Borough. Rebecca is also campaigning on support for small businesses, independent traders and local charities and church groups during the recession.