MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands receives this week members of the UK Parliament

Opperman, Menzies and Fovargue will meet with Falklands MLAs

Three members of the UK Parliament will be arriving in the Falkland Islands next week for a short visit. Conservative party members Guy Opperman and Mark Menzies are accompanied by Labor Party member Yvonne Fovargue and arrive on January 30, departing on February 4.

 The group will meet with Falklands' elected Assembly Members and other government officers as well as private sector business people and will also squeeze in a visit to Sea Lion Island to experience some of the wildlife.

Guy Opperman is Parliamentary Personal Secretary (PPS) to the Minister of State for Immigration at the Home Office and directs his political interests towards prison reform and sentencing, health, fuel poverty, tourism, apprenticeships and youth training.

A former amateur jockey, businessman and barrister he is reported to have raced to victory in the Tories’ rural Northumbrian outpost in 2010, “with as much ease as he had won the first race in the Tynedale Hunt point-to-point a year earlier.”

Mark Menzies has been a member of the Conservative Party since 1987 and formerly worked for Marks and Spencer and Asda before becoming Senior Marketing Executive at Morrisons supermarket.

His political interests include energy, defense and food retailing and he is PPS to Minister of State, Department for International Development, Alan Duncan.

Yvonne Fovargue is the Shadow Minister for Defense with political interests in the third sector, consumer credit and debt, employment law, health and legal aid. A brainy Warrington councilor and local Citizen’s Advice Bureau chief, Ms Fovague won a woman-only selection to succeed the former Minister, Ian McCartney who stood down after ill-health and problems with his expenses in 2010. (PN).-