Wera Hobhouse

Wera Hobhouse has been the Liberal Democrat MP for Bath since 2017. Born in Hanover, West Germany in 1960, she studied art at Münster, Paris and Berlin, combining her studies with a job as a radio journalist. Hobhouse met her English future husband in Berlin and moved with him to Liverpool where they opened an art gallery. In 1999, the couple relocated to Rochdale and in 2004 both William and Wera Hobhouse were elected as Conservative councillors on Rochdale council. In 2005 while she was serving as the councillor for Norden, a dispute over a housing development led to Hobhouse and her husband defecting from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats. Hobhouse was elected as a Liberal Democrat councillor in 2006 and 2010. She became the leader of the Liberal Democrats on the council in 2011. Hobhouse first stood for parliament in Heywood & Middleton at the 2010 general election, coming third. In the 2015 general election, Hobhouse contested Jacob Rees-Mogg’s seat, North East Somerset, coming fourth. At the 2017 general election she was elected as the MP for Bath, defeating the incumbent Conservative Ben Howlett by 5,694 votes, on a swing of 9.8 per cent. Following her election, she joined the Committee on Exiting the European Union and was appointed party spokesperson for housing, communities and local government, switching in February 2019 to take on the briefs for justice, and the environment and climate change. In early 2018, Hobhouse introduced a private member’s bill intended to outlaw acts of voyeurism, such as upskirting. Although this was blocked, the government declared its support for the bill and the Voyeurism (Offences) Act was passed in 2019. In the last parliament, Hobhouse chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Light Rail and the APPG on Eating Disorders. She fared better than several of her colleagues at the 2019 election, more than doubling her majority to 12,322. She has been touted as a potential contender for the Liberal Democrat leadership.