Elected Mayor Debate with Rt Hon Greg Clark MP

Watch the debate here again in high quality.

Debate: Birmingham Chamber President, Mike Ward, Lord Heseltine, Lord Adonis, Sir Peter Soulsby- the elected mayor of Leicester- and Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Minister for Cities discussed the upcoming referendum on an elected mayor for Birmingham.

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Speaker Biographies.

Michael Ward

President of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Group, Senior Partner at Gateley

Michael heads Gateley's corporate team in England and is the firm's joint Senior Partner. He has considerable experience in corporate transactions (acting for sellers, buyers and debt or equity providers), corporate restructuring and shareholder disputes. He is regularly involved in contract negotiations, deal origination and deal restructuring.

Michael has over 25 years' experience as a corporate lawyer in the Midlands, advising private and public companies, management companies and private investors. He has been instrumental in the development of the corporate team becoming one of the leading corporate teams in the Midlands. Michael has influence among all the major business bodies in the West Midlands as demonstrated through his current role as President of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.

He is a former President and Treasurer of Birmingham Law Society, a former Chairman of the Young Solicitors Group and Trainee Solicitors Group and the current chair of the Midland's Corporate Finance Charity Ball Committee. Michael enjoys playing golf and is a member of Edgbaston Golf Club. Other interests include holidaying in Portugal and watching football, cricket, golf and rugby.

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Lord Andrew Adonis
Chair of Progress

Lord Andrew Adonis was an integral part of the last Labour Government as a minister and special adviser, latterly as Secretary of State for Transport.

During his time in government Lord Adonis was Minister for Schools, Head of the No.10 Policy Unit under Tony Blair, and senior No. 10 adviser on education, public services and constitutional reform.

Lord Adonis pioneered many of the key public service reforms of the Blair/Brown governments. Within education, as adviser and then Minister, he developed the Academy programme, which established more than 200 independent state schools with dynamic non-state sponsors to replace weak and failing secondary schools.  The Academy model is now being extended across the school system by the coalition government. He also helped pioneer Teach First, the successful scheme for attracting top graduates into state school teaching for at least two years after graduation.

At the Department for Transport he led the development of the plan for a high-speed rail line from London to northern England and Scotland.  Within a year of his arrival at the Department for Transport, a government policy statement was published including a detailed route plan for the first 100 miles from London to Birmingham, and associated economic, social and environmental assessments.  All three political parties, and the Scottish government, are now committed to HSR with The Secretary of State for Transport, Justine Greening, announcing that HS2 would go ahead in January.

Before joining government, Lord Adonis was a journalist and academic focusing on public policy and constitutional analysis.  He was Public Policy Editor of the Financial Times, and Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, where he gained his PhD in modern political history.

After leaving Government Lord Adonis joined the Institute for Government and has been a vocal advocate for directly elected Mayors for England's largest Cities. Additionally Lord Adonis has been a staunch supporter of HS2 and has called for the Government to push ahead with its plans and bring the deadline for HS2 and the Y-network forward.

Lord Adonis has since left the Institute for Government and is the Chair of Progress, a New Labour pressure group which aims to promote 'a radical and progressive politics for the 21st century'.

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Lord Michael Heseltine

Michael Heseltine was born in Swansea, educated at Shrewsbury School and Oxford University. Having established a successful career with Haymarket Publishing Lord Heseltine entered Parliament as MP for Tavistock (later MP for Henley on Thames) at 33 and later Cabinet.

As Secretary of State for the Environment, Lord Heseltine was called upon to act as a trouble-shooter for the government to deal with the inner-city violence that erupted in the early 1980s. Lord Heseltine also served as Secretary of State for Defence between 1983 and 1986 when he resigned over a dispute in government which led to a defence contract going to a US firm rather than Westland Helicopters of the UK.

Under Prime Minister, John Major, Lord Heseltine re-entered government as Secretary of State for the Environment (with particular responsibility for replacing the Poll Tax). Lord Heseltine later became President of the Board of Trade and then Deputy Prime Minister. After retirement from the Commons he was given a life peerage as Baron Heseltine, of Thenford in the County of Northamptonshire.

Lord Heseltine has been a vocal advocate of elected Mayors publishing a report for the Conservative party which stated that Britain's cities need directly-elected mayors with 'very substantial powers'. Lord Heseltine has also said that local Mayors should have the power to issue bonds and borrow money.

Lord Heseltine has said that 'We have to have directly-elected chief executives in the cities of our country; people will then know who they are, they can hold them to account and the central government can transfer very substantial powers to them.'

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Sir Peter Soulsby
Mayor of Leicester

Sir Peter Soulsby attended the Minchenden School before attending the City of Leicester College of Education going on to become a teacher at Crown Hills Secondary Modern School and various special needs schools.

Sir Peter became the Member of Parliament for Leicester South from 2005 until he resigned in order to contest the new post of mayor in April 2011. Sir Peter was elected as Mayor of Leicester on 5 May 2011. He is considered to be one of the most powerful public officials in the United Kingdom.

First elected to Leicester City Council in 1974 Sir Peter remained a Councillor until May 2003. Since July 1998, Sir Peter has been on the board of British Waterways, becoming Vice-Chairman in 2000 and has also served as a member of the Audit Commission.

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The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP
Minister for Cities

Greg Clark was born in Middlesbrough in 1967, where he attended the South Bank comprehensive school and went on to study economics at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He took a PhD at the London School of Economics.

Mr Clark served as the Conservative Party's Director of Policy for four years and is credited with writing much of its 2005 manifesto. Clark then entered Parliament in 2005, succeeding Archie Norman in Tunbridge Wells.

As deputy to the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, he is charged with implementing the Government's key policy of decentralisation and the concept of the "Big Society", involving him in all aspects of policy.

Prior to his Parliamentary career Mr Clark went into business for the Boston Consulting Group, spent two years researching and teaching at the London School of Economics and the Open University, and was head of commercial policy at the BBC for four years. He spent the last year of the Tory Government as political adviser to Ian Lang when he was President of the Board of Trade. The former Chancellor Nigel Lawson cited him as an influence on his own policies.

He was co-author of The Children Left Behind, and of a series of pamphlets: Reversing the Drivers of Regulation. He is passionately opposed to over-regulation of business. He has also written extensively on the decentralisation of power, localism and the future of cities.

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