Anthony David Steen (born 22 July 1939) is a British Conservative Party politician who was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1974 to 2010, and the chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation. Having represented Totnes in Devon since 1997, he was previously MP for South Hams from 1983, and had also been the MP for Liverpool Wavertree between February 1974 and 1983. He chose not to recontest his seat in the 2010 general election as a result of the parliamentary expenses scandal.
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He was born in 1939 to Ashkenazi Jewish parents, Stephen Nicholas Steen (formerly Stein ), one time chairman and president of Smith & Nephew, and Jacqueline Annette, daughter of William (formerly Wolko or Woolf) Slavouski, a Russian fur and skin trader. He attended Westminster School and University College London where he gained an LLB. He became a barrister in 1962. In 1964, he founded Task Force, an organisation where young people help the elderly with the help of a government grant and served as its Director from 1964-68. He then founded the Young Volunteer Force, serving as Director from 1968-74. He also worked on the Court Martials' Defence Counsel for the Ministry of Defence from 1964-68. From 1964-67 he lectured in Law at the Council of Legal Education. From 1970-71, he was an advisor to federal and provincial Canadian governments on unemployment and youth problems.
In his role as chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the trafficking of women and children, Steen did much to raise awareness of the scourge of human trafficking in the UK.
Viewed as being on the left of the party, he backed Kenneth Clarke's leadership bids. In 2001, he was one of Clarke's most vocal supporters, denouncing the supporters of Iain Duncan Smith as bigots. He is, however, not as enthusiastic about the European Union and describes himself as a Europragmatist.
In May 2007 he was fined for parking his car in a disabled parking bay at Newton Abbot railway station. While accepting he had parked in the wrong space and deserved his ticket, he stated there are "an absurd number of handicapped spaces" at the station, "not that I've ever seen a handicapped person ever use one of them". He described a constituent who photographed his illegally parked car and passed the photo to a local paper as "very sneaky".
In May 2009 he was involved in the parliamentary expenses scandal, and was reported by The Daily Telegraph to have claimed over £87,000 on his constituency mansion which he designated as his second home. Expenses included items for rabbit fencing, tree surgery (his home is surrounded by 500 trees, he also claimed for their inspection), woodland consultants and bore hole maintenance. As a result, he announced he would not contest the next general election.
The Independent newspaper reproduced his comments on BBC Radio 4's The World at One programme:"I think I have behaved impeccably. I have done nothing criminal. And you know what it's about? Jealousy. I have got a very, very large house. Some people say it looks like Balmoral, but it's a merchant's house from the 19th century[...] We have a wretched Government here that has completely mucked up the system and caused the resignation of me and many others, because it was this Government that introduced the Freedom of information in the United Kingdom and it is this Government that insisted on the things which caught me on the wrong foot."He added in the same interview: "What right does the public have to interfere in my private life? None. Do you know what this reminds me of? An episode of Coronation Street. This is a kangaroo court." A few hours later he apologised for "over-reacting".
In the 2010 British general election, Steen's replacement, Sarah Wollaston, more than doubled the Tory majority in Totnes.
He married Carolyn Padfield in 1966. She is a child psychologist. They have a son called Jason and a daughter called Xanthe. Their daughter Xanthe currently works as photographer and journalist based in Jerusalem. He recently visited the Givat Haviva institute, a charity promoting Jewish-Arab relations during a tour of Israel.
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