John Healey (politician)

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John Healey
Official portrait, 2020
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Assumed office
6 April 2020
LeaderKeir Starmer
Preceded byNia Griffith
Minister of State for Housing and Planning
In office
5 June 2009 – 11 May 2010
Prime MinisterGordon Brown
Preceded byMargaret Beckett
Succeeded byGrant Shapps
Minister of State for Local Government
In office
28 June 2007 – 5 June 2009
Prime MinisterGordon Brown
Preceded byPhil Woolas
Succeeded byRosie Winterton
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
In office
10 May 2005 – 28 June 2007
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byStephen Timms
Succeeded byJane Kennedy
Economic Secretary to the Treasury
In office
30 May 2002 – 10 May 2005
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byRuth Kelly
Succeeded byIvan Lewis
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Adult Skills
In office
11 June 2001 – 30 May 2002
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Succeeded byIvan Lewis
Member of Parliament
for Wentworth and Dearne
Wentworth (1997–2010)
Assumed office
1 May 1997
Preceded byPeter Hardy
Majority2,165 (5.2%)
Further shadow portfolios
2010Shadow Minister for Housing
2010–2011Shadow Secretary of State for Health
2015–2016Shadow Minister for Housing
2016–2020Shadow Secretary of State for Housing
Personal details
Born (1960-02-13) 13 February 1960 (age 64)
Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
Political partyLabour
SpouseJackie Bate
EducationSt Peter's School, York
Alma materChrist's College, Cambridge
WebsiteOfficial website

John Healey (born 13 February 1960) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wentworth and Dearne, formerly Wentworth, since 1997. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Shadow Secretary of State for Defence since 2020.

Healey was Minister of State for Housing and Planning in the Brown Government.

Following the 2010 general election, he was elected to the Shadow Cabinet and was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Health. He stood down from the role in October 2011 and was succeeded by Andy Burnham. He also served as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing from 2016 to 2020 under Jeremy Corbyn, and worked alongside Andrew Gwynne, the Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Early life and non-Parliamentary Career[edit]

John Healey was born in Wakefield, the son of Aidan Healey OBE. He was educated at the Lady Lumley's School in Pickering before attending the independent St Peter's School, York for sixth form.[1] He studied Social and Political Science at Christ's College, Cambridge[2] where he received a BA in 1982.

Healey worked as a journalist and the deputy editor of The House, the internal magazine of the Palace of Westminster, for a year in 1983.[3] In 1984 he became a full-time disability rights campaigner for several national charities.

Healey joined Issues Communications in 1990 as a campaign manager before becoming the head of communications at the Manufacturing, Science and Finance trade union in 1992.[4] He was appointed as the campaign director with the Trades Union Congress in 1994[5] in which capacity he remained until his election to the House of Commons. He was also a tutor at the Open University Business School.[6]

Healey's first attempt to enter Parliament was to be elected for Ryedale at the 1992 general election, where he finished in third with 13.8% of the vote behind the incumbent Conservative MP John Greenway and the Liberal Democrat Elizabeth Shields.[7][8]

Parliamentary Career[edit]

Selection[edit]

At the 1997 general election, Healey was the Labour Party candidate for Wentworth, which had become available following the retirement of the Labour MP Peter Hardy. Healey was elected to Parliament with 72.3% of the vote and a majority of 23,959.[9]

In government[edit]

Healey served as a member of the education and employment select committee from 1997 until he became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in 1999.

At the 2001 general election, Healey was re-elected as MP for Wentworth with a decreased vote share of 67.5% and a decreased majority of 16,449.[10] Following the election, he was appointed as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Adult Skills at the Department for Education and Skills.

Healey was promoted in 2002 to the position of Economic Secretary to the Treasury. Healey's responsibilities included government statistics, (including the Office for National Statistics), along with implementation of the government's 10 year strategy for science and innovation, which directs spending of around £5 billion a year.

At the 2005 general election Healey was again re-elected with a decreased vote share of 59.6% and a decreased majority of 15,056.[11]

On 29 June 2007, Healey was moved to the Department for Communities and Local Government as a result of a government reshuffle. Shortly after his appointment he assumed responsibility for assisting the recovery from recent widespread flooding across the United Kingdom.

In a Cabinet reshuffle on 5 June 2009, he was appointed Minister of State for Housing and Planning, replacing Margaret Beckett who had resigned. While Minister of State for Housing and Planning, he was criticised for suggesting that more people are renting rather than buying their own homes was a good thing.[12]

In opposition[edit]

At the 2010 general election Healey was elected to Parliament as the MP for the newly-created constituency of Wentworth and Dearne with 50.6% of the vote and a majority of 13,920.[13][14]

Healey came second in the election for the shadow cabinet in 2010, and was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Health.[15] He resigned from this position in 2011 in order to spend more time with his family.[16]

At the 2015 general election Healey was re-elected as MP for Wentworth and Dearne with an increased vote share of 56.3% and a decreased majority of 13,838.[17][18]

In 2015 three Rotherham Labour MPs, Kevin Barron, Sarah Champion and Healey, started a defamation legal action against UKIP MEP Jane Collins after Collins falsely alleged in a UKIP conference speech that the three MPs knew about child exploitation in Rotherham but did not intervene. In February 2017 the MPs were awarded £54,000 each in damages.[19]

Following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader, Healey was appointed Shadow Minister for Housing. He supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election.[20] Following the leadership election, Healey was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Housing in October 2016.

At the snap 2017 general election Healey was again re-elected, with an increased vote share of 65% and an increased majority of 14,803.[21] He was again re-elected at the 2019 general election, with a decreased vote share of 40.3% and a decreased majority of 2,165.[22][23]

Following the election of Keir Starmer, Healey was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Defence.

Political views[edit]

Healey consistently voted in favour of the 2003 Iraq War.[24]

Healey maintains affordable housing should be a right, not a privilege. He wrote in 2018 that "The housing market is broken, and, after eight long years it is clear that current Conservative housing policy is failing to fix it. Ministers talk big about housebuilding targets to be reached some time in the next decade. But what new homes we build, and who they’re for, matter just as much as how many we build. To make housing more affordable, we need to build more affordable homes, and to hardwire housing affordability through the system, from planning to funding to delivery. The public know this: eight in 10 people think ministers should be doing more to get affordable housing built. (...) We will build for those who need it, including the very poorest and most vulnerable, with a big boost to new social rented homes. And we will also build Labour’s new affordable homes for those in work on ordinary incomes who are priced out of the housing market and being failed by housing policy. This is the “just coping” class in Britain today, who do the jobs we all rely on – IT workers, HGV drivers, joiners, warehouse managers, lab technicians, nurses, teaching assistants, call centre supervisors, shop staff."[25]

Healey also said, "Homelessness fell at an unprecedented rate with Labour but, after eight years of the Tories, it is shameful that 131,000 children will be without a home this Christmas [Christmas 2018]. It’s no surprise that homelessness is rising rapidly when the Conservatives have slashed investment in new affordable homes, refused to help private renters and made huge cuts to housing benefit and homelessness services."[26]

Personal life[edit]

Healey married Jackie Bate on 25 October 1993 in Lambeth and they have one son. Healey is a member of Amnesty International. He is not related to former Labour cabinet minister Denis Healey.

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Shadow Housing Secretary returns to St Peter's". www.stpetersyork.org.uk. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  2. ^ Hetherington, Peter (24 July 2007). "More power to the regions". The Guardian. London.
  3. ^ "PolicyMogul". policymogul.com. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
  4. ^ "About John". John Healey MP. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
  5. ^ "PolicyMogul". policymogul.com. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
  6. ^ "PolicyMogul". policymogul.com. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
  7. ^ "Election Data 1992". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  8. ^ "Politics Resources". Election 1992. Politics Resources. 9 April 1992. Retrieved 6 December 2010.
  9. ^ "Election Data 1997". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  10. ^ "Election Data 2001". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  11. ^ "Election Data 2005". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  12. ^ "John Healey, housing minister, attacked for lauding fall in ownership". The Daily Telegraph. 11 December 2009. Retrieved 13 December 2017.
  13. ^ "Election Data 2010". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 26 July 2013. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  14. ^ "Election results: Wentworth & Dearne". BBC News. 7 May 2010. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
  15. ^ "Ed Miliband's shadow cabinet". BBC News. 8 October 2013.
  16. ^ Stratton, Allegra (7 October 2011). "Ed Miliband to bring former ministers into shadow cabinet in reshuffle". The Guardian.
  17. ^ "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  18. ^ "Wentworth & Dearne". BBC News. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  19. ^ "Jane Collins defamation case: Labour Rotherham MPs awarded £54,000". BBC News. 6 February 2017. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  20. ^ "Full list of MPs and MEPs backing challenger Owen Smith". LabourList. 21 July 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
  21. ^ "Wentworth & Dearne", BBC News
  22. ^ "Statement of Persons Nominated, Notice of Poll and Situation of Polling Stations". Rotherham Council. 14 November 2019. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  23. ^ "Wentworth & Dearne Parliamentary constituency". BBC News. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  24. ^ John Healey MP, Wentworth voted strongly for the policy Iraq 2003 - For the invasion. PublicWhip. Retrieved 2024-02-04.
  25. ^ Britain’s housing market is broken. Here’s how Labour will fix it The Guardian
  26. ^ 130,000 homeless children to be in temporary lodgings over Christmas The Guardian

External links[edit]

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament
for Wentworth

19972010
Constituency abolished
New constituency Member of Parliament
for Wentworth and Dearne

2010–present
Incumbent
Political offices
Preceded by Economic Secretary to the Treasury
2002–2005
Succeeded by
Preceded by Financial Secretary to the Treasury
2005–2007
Succeeded by
Preceded by Minister of State for Local Government
2007–2009
Succeeded by
Preceded by Minister of State for Housing and Planning
2009–2010
Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government
2010
Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Secretary of State for Health
2010–2011
Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Minister for Housing and Planning
2015–2016
Vacant
New office Shadow Secretary of State for Housing
2016–2020
Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
2020–present
Incumbent