PPC Profile: Andrew Lomas

Full name: Andrew Philip Lomas

Age: 25

From: Coventry

PPC for: Wycombe

Website: www.wycombelabour.org/andrew-lomas

Selection Result: I won.

CV:
I’m currently working on a PhD in cancer research alongside which I teach undergraduate chemistry. In 2006 I authored Rewiring Democracy which looked at using the internet and other technologies to make government both more citizen-centred and more efficient; 3 years on, it perhaps has a renewed relevance as we enter an age of public austerity.

I was inspired to go into politics because:
I hate defeatism; poverty of ambition is as pernicious as material poverty because it enslaves people in the mindset that their circumstances will never change. I’m always inspired by the capacity of ordinary people to change things for the better and similarly always crushed when people feel hopeless and disempowered. It’s up to politics and politicians to offer people the opportunity to realise their full potential rather than talk down to them.

My main policy interests are:
Education (especially HE); Science, Technology and Innovation; Foreign and Defence Policy

Three things I think should be in the next Labour manifesto are:

1 – Recast the welfare state around people by introducing a citizen’s basic income and individual learning budgets. Welfare reform needs to recognise that it is education rather than forcing people into a string of poorly paid dead-end jobs that offers the best route out of poverty and reduces the risk of the individual slipping back into poverty.

2 – Improved rights for agency and temporary workers. Yes, the UK needs to remain an attractive place to do business but we already have the most flexible labour market in Europe; equalising the rights of agency staff to those of their permanent colleagues is a no-brainer.

3 – Better access to NHS dentistry by making it a contractual obligation for dentistry students to work for 2 years in the NHS on qualification. It happens with medical students so I don’t see why the situation should be different for dentists; in both cases the taxpayer is subsidising entry into a very lucrative career.

I think people should vote for me because:
People should vote for me because they’re unhappy with the status quo. In Wycombe, the status quo means a continued shortage of affordable housing, crumbling communal facilities, social services that persistently fail the weak and vulnerable, and a ten year gulf in life expectancy depending on which part of the constituency you live in. Wycombe deserves better.