Vice chairmen

Jim Fitzpatrick MP

Jim entered Parliament in 1997 and in 1999 he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Alan Milburn until becoming the Secretary of State for Health. After the 2001 General Election he became an Assistant Government Whip, becoming a Lord Commissioner to the Treasury (Government Whip) in 2002. He was again promoted within the Whips Office in 2003 when he became the Vice-Chamberlain of the Household. Jim was then appointed a junior minister at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister with the role of Minister for London. In June 2007 he moved to become the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Transport.

Fitzpatrick was promoted to Minister of Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the June 2009 reshuffle where he remained until the 2010 general election. Prior to entering Westminster Jim was a firefighter with the London Fire Brigade.

Caroline Lucas MP

Caroline was elected as one of the Green Party's first MEPs in June 1999 to represent the South East of England region and was re-elected with an increased vote share in 2004. She has been highly involved in many animal welfare issues and chaired the Eurogroup for Animal Welfare.

Caroline joined the Green Party in 1986 and has held many positions including National Press Officer (1987-89) and Co-Chair (1989-90). In 2008 she was elected Party Leader. She won the party's second County Council seat in 1993 and served on Oxfordshire County Council until 1997.

Caroline received the Michael Kay Award from the RSPCA in 2006 for her outstanding contribution to European animal welfare and BBC Wildlife listed Caroline in their 'Top 50 Conservationists'. In 2007, 2009 and 2010 Caroline was voted Ethical Politician of the Year by Observer readers in their annual Ethical Awards and in 2008 was judged one of the Guardian's top "eco-heroes."

Mike Hancock MP

Mike won his Westminster seat of Portsmouth South in a by-election in 1984. After two narrow loses by 205 and 242, in 1987 and 1992, he regained the seat in 1997 and has increased the majority at each election since.

As an MP Mike has a reputation as an active campaigner for animal rights - supporting the banning of hunting with dogs and co-sponsoring a bill to ban the live export of animals. Mike is a patron of the Captive Animals Protection Society, a charity campaigning for an end to the use of animals in circuses, zoos and the exotic pet trade.
He worked as an engineer until he was first elected to parliament, and in the years between his parliamentary career he worked as both a director of the Daytime Club at the BBC and as a district officer for MENCAP. He has been the chairman of the southern region of the NSPCC since 1989 and has been the vice chairman of Portsmouth Dock since 1992 and was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the same year.

Treasurer

Lord Soulsby
Lord Soulsby was created a Life Peer in 1990 as Baron Soulsby, of Swaffham Prior, in the County of Cambridgeshire and sits as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords. Lord Soulsby was a Veterinary Officer for the City of Edinburgh from 1949 to 1952, and then a lecturer in Clinical Parasitology at the University of Bristol from 1952 to 1954. From 1954 to 1963 Soulsby was a lecturer in Animal Pathology at the University of Cambridge. He was Professor of Parasitology at the University of Pennsylvania until 1978, when he returned to the University of Cambridge as Professor of Animal Pathology. Before his retirement Soulsby was also a visiting professor at various universities in Europe and the United States. He is an honorary member of numerous international parasitology societies and has been awarded numerous honorary degrees and awards. Soulsby has been a member of the Council of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons since 1978 and is a past President of the Royal Society of Medicine, past President of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and is Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge.

He served on the Government's inquiry into fox hunting and is an expert adviser to the UK Government on animal welfare, science and technology, biotechnology and environmental issues. He is in addition the President of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee and the President of the Royal Institute of Public Health.

Lord Soulsby is also veterinary surgeon to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and has published 14 books as well as articles in various veterinary journals.

Secretary

Andrew Rosindell MP
Andrew entered Westminster in 2001 and since then he has been elected vice-chairman of the Conservative Party in 2004, and in December 2005, he became an Opposition Whip. In July 2007, he was appointed as a Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and up until the 2010 General Election he was the Conservative Spokeman for Animal Welfare.

Before entering politics on a full-time basis, he was a freelance journalist and public relations consultant.