A member of the League Against Cruel Sports for over 40 years, he served on several select committees: The Environmental Audit Committee (since 2001), the Joint Committee on Consolidation of Bills (since 2001), the Unopposed Bills Panel (since 2004) and the DECC Select committee (2009/10). He is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.
On 29 January 2007 Challen announced that he would not contest the 2010 general election after a Boundary Commission review abolished his constituency, thus letting Ed Balls contest the new Morley and Outwood constituency, formed from a merger of parts of Morley and Rothwell and Balls' also abolished Normanton constituency.
In 2013 Challen opened an art gallery called 'artHERENT' in Scarborough (North Yorkshire) Market, to display recent works. The first exhibition, "Is there any hope for the dead? Reliquaries and other items" started in September 2013. His most recent exhibition "Drawing on Myth" in 2017 was exhibited at the Woodend Creative Workspace in Scarborough. Challen also exhibited in Hull with the Kingston Art Group in 2017 following Hull being named as the City of Culture.[3] In 2020 Challen gained an MA in fine art at Teesside University (MIMA School of Art and Design).
Climate change work
Challen founded the All Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change in 2005,[4] and has written that he believes the "catastrophic destabilisation of global climate represents the greatest threat that humanity faces."[5]
In 2004, Challen presented a Ten Minute Rule Bill introducing the idea of David Fleming's TEQs scheme to Parliament, as a way of guaranteeing that promised emissions reductions would actually be achieved.[6] In 2009, Challen tabled an early day motion calling for all internal UK flights to be phased out before the end of the year, in order to reduce greenhouse gases.[5] He also urged Parliament to cut the national speed limit to 55 mph, and to dedicate two hours of prime-time television each week to explain the dangers posed by climate change.[7]
The Price of Power: Secret Funding of the Tory Party (VISION Investigations) by Colin Challen, 1998, Vision Paperbacks / Satin Publications, ISBN1-901250-18-0
In Defence of the Party: The Secret State, the Conservative Party and Dirty Tricks by Colin Challen, Mike Hughes 1996, Medium Publishing Co., ISBN1-872398-01-4
Too Little Too Late: The politics of climate change by Colin Challen, 2009 Picnic Publishing, ISBN978-0-9560370-0-8