Misplaced Pages

This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "Rob Flello" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Robert Charles Douglas Flello (born 14 January 1966) is a British Liberal Democrat politician who was Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Stoke-on-Trent South from 2005 to 2017. He lost his seat at the 2017 general election to Conservative Party candidate Jack Brereton.

Early life

Flello was born in Bournville, Birmingham. He attended Bournville Junior and Infant schools before going to King's Norton Boys' School. At age 18 he went to University of Wales, Bangor to read Chemistry. He graduated in 1987 with a B.Sc (Hons).

Career

After graduating, Flello worked for a short time at Cadbury in Bournville before joining the Inland Revenue. In 1989 he left to join Price Waterhouse accountants as a personal tax advisor. In 1995 he moved to Arthur Andersen. In 1999, he co-founded Platts Flello Limited, tax and financial advisors. In late 2003 he left to work as the CEO of Malachi Community Trust until December 2004.

Political career

Local Government

Flello was elected as a councillor to the Longbridge ward of Birmingham City Council in 2002, stepping down in 2004. He is a former chairman of the Birmingham Northfield Constituency Labour Party. He served as a governor at the Newman College in Bartley Green, and was Chair of Governors for both Colmers Farm infants and junior schools. He was also a governor at The Meadows primary school. He served as a regional organiser for the Labour Party in 2004 until his election to Westminster.

Parliamentary

Flello was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for Stoke-on-Trent South following the retirement of George Stevenson. Flello held the seat with a majority of 8,681 and made his maiden speech on 19 May 2005.

In parliament he was a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee. While Labour were in government he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary first to the Lord Chancellor, Charles Falconer, then to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears, and finally after 2009 to the Secretary of State for Defence, Bob Ainsworth.

In 2007, Flello was accused of filibustering a fellow Labour backbencher's private members bill. The bill, introduced by neighbouring Staffordshire MP Paul Farrelly, aimed to give temporary and agency workers similar employment rights to permanent staff. It was backed by the Unite trade union. The incident provoked an angry response in the Daily Mirror.

In February 2013, Flello voted against the second reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. Subsequently, in May 2013 the MP voted against the bill's third and final reading, opposing the legalisation of same-sex marriage within England and Wales.

Flello is a convert to Catholicism and stated in 2014 "I could no more leave my faith at the door of the House of Commons than I could my name or my gender or my arms and legs". He was a member of the anti-abortion All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group.

In June 2016, Labour Party activists in Stoke-on-Trent South proposed a motion of no confidence in Flello after he called on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to "do the decent thing and resign". He had supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour leadership election.

In 2017, Flello blamed "shocking congestion" in London on the loss of tarmac from building cycle lanes, which received a critical response from bike charity the London Cycling Campaign and cycling website road.cc, both pointing out that tarmac had been repurposed to another form of transport and that the increased number of journeys overall in Central London were what was causing congestion, not the segregated cycle tracks that are on less than 1% of London roads.

In 2019 he defected to the Lib Dems and was selected as their parliamentary candidate for his old seat. 36 hours after his selection, however, the Lib Dems deselected Flello, citing "how greatly his values diverge from ours". It is believed that they objected to his socially conservative views on abortion and same-sex marriage.

References

1. House of Commons Hansard Debates for 19 May 2005 (pt 20). Publications.parliament.uk (19 May 2005); retrieved 9 May 2015.
2. "SHAME OF MOUTHY MP". mirror.co.uk. 7 March 2007. Retrieved 13 January 2013.
3. "MP-by-MP: Gay marriage vote". BBC News. 5 February 2013. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
4. "The Public Whip — Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill — Third Reading – 21 May 2013 at 18:59". www.publicwhip.org.uk. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
5. Park, James (20 January 2013). "Labour Shadow Justice Minister Rob Flello to vote against same-sex marriage equality". PinkNews. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
6. "This was a grim night for Christians and pro-lifers in parliament – CatholicHerald.co.uk". 9 June 2017.
7. "Labour activists propose motion of no confidence in Rob Flello MP as he called on Corbyn to resign". Stoke Sentinel. 29 June 2016.
8. "Full list of MPs and MEPs backing challenger Owen Smith". LabourList. 21 July 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
9. Batchelor, Tom (10 January 2017). "MP says cycle lanes should be scrapped to make more room for cars". The Independent.
10. Bowden, Alex (10 January 2017). "Senior MP asks whether 'loss of tarmac' for cycle lanes is causing London's congestion problems as Government launches urban congestion inquiry". road.cc.
11. RH, Andrew (2 April 2014). "24 London Boroughs installed ZERO segregated cycle-lanes since the last London elections". SKC.
12. Corrigan, Phil (12 November 2019). "Former Stoke-on-Trent Labour MP Rob Flello to fight old seat – as a Lib Dem". Stoke Sentinel.
13. Burn, Joe (12 November 2019). "Cut short! Lib Dems deselect former Labour MP Rob Flello after just 36 hours". Stoke Sentinel.
14. "Former Labour MP deselected as Lib Dem candidate". BBC News. 13 November 2019. Retrieved 5 November 2019.

External links

• Official website
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou

• 1966 births
• Living people
• Alumni of Bangor University
• English Roman Catholics
• Councillors in Birmingham, West Midlands
• Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
• Politicians from Birmingham, West Midlands
• British anti-abortion activists
• Converts to Roman Catholicism
• UK MPs 2005–2010
• UK MPs 2010–2015
• UK MPs 2015–2017