Julia Goldsworthy - Parliamentary Career

Parliamentary Career

She was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 General Election for Falmouth and Camborne when she ousted the sitting Labour MP Candy Atherton. Goldsworthy won the seat with a majority of 1,886 and made her maiden speech on 19 May 2005. She names former Cornish MP David Penhaligon (1944–1986) as her greatest hero. Her election in 2005 meant that the Liberal Democrats held all the Westminster Parliament seats in Cornwall, for the first time since 1923.

In 2005, she was appointed as a spokesperson on health by Charles Kennedy, and promoted in 2006 by new leader Sir Menzies Campbell as Vince Cable's deputy in the Treasury team. She was also member of the Public Administration Select Committee from 2005 until mid-2006. Julia Goldsworthy was promoted again in December 2007 to become the Liberal Democrat shadow secretary on Communities and Local Government. As an MP, she worked on issues such as the 'Axe the Tax' campaign against council tax, pensions, student tuition fees, health funding formulas and the abolition of central housing targets on local communities.

During her parliamentary career, Goldsworthy also used the social networking website Facebook as a way of gauging the opinions and views of her constituents, and this has led her to campaign for various issues. On 14 May 2008 in the House of Commons debates, she presented a petition on behalf of many thousands of people living in Cornwall who would like to see Cornwall be recognised as a network region on the website. It was announced in December 2009, however, that Facebook will be discontinuing regional networks, and that all present networks will be closed. Goldsworthy is a supporter of the Facebook Cornish Tickbox for the 2011 Census campaign.

In the 2010 General Election, Goldsworthy lost her seat by 66 votes (0.16%) to the Conservative challenger George Eustice.