Leslie Rowe is married, has three young sons and lives in Brompton on Swale in the Richmond constituency of North Yorkshire. He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants with an MBA from Oxford Brookes University. He currently runs his own consultancy business in between campaigning for the Green Party. He has stood for Parliament three times, twice for the Liberal Democrats and once for the Green Party (in 2005). He has also stood for the European Parliament twice: in 1989 for the Lib-Dems and in 2008 for the Green Party. His main interests are Europe, finance (especially local government, VFM and economic policy), foreign policy and defence, rural transport and poverty and schools. He is also deputy chair of the local parish council (where he proposed policy that led to a reduction in parish precept this year) and a school governor at Richmond School. He is, in addition, an amateur Taiko drummer.