Yvette Cooper

Yvette Cooper (born 20 March 1969) is a British politician. She is the Labour Member of Parliament for Pontefract and Castleford and is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the first woman in that position, from 24th January 2008.

Born in Inverness, her father is Tony Cooper,^[1] former General Secretary of the Union Prospect, a member of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and a former Chairman of the British Nuclear Industry Forum. He was appointed to the government's Energy Advisory Panel by the Conservatives and has been described by the Nuclear Industry Association as an "articulate, persuasive and well-informed advocate of nuclear power".^[2] She was educated at the comprehensive Eggar's School on London Road in Holybourne near Alton and Alton College. She studied at Balliol College, Oxford where she was awarded a BA in PPE (the same degree as her husband's). She was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship in 1991 to Harvard University and finished her studies with a MSc in Economics at the LSE.

She began her career as an economics researcher to the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John Smith MP in 1990 before becoming a domestic policy specialist, working in Arkansas, for the United States Democratic Party presidential candidate Bill Clinton in 1992. Later in the year she became a policy advisor to the new Shadow Chief Secretary to The Treasury (Harriet Harman MP) who was deputy to the new Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown MP and in 1994 found herself working as a research associate for the Centre for Economic Performance. In 1995 she became the economic correspondent with The Independent until her election to Westminster.

She was selected at a very late stage in April 1997 to contest the very safe Labour seat of Pontefract and Castleford at the 1997 General Election on the retirement of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons Geoff Lofthouse. She held the seat very comfortably with a majority of 25,725 and she has held the seat easily since. She spoke of her constituency's struggle with unemployment in her maiden speech on 2 July 1997.^[3] Yvette Cooper rose rapidly in parliament, after two years on the Education and Employment Select Committee.

In 1999, she became a member of the Tony Blair government as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health, and in 2003 moved to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. After the 2005 General Election she was promoted within the same department to Minister of State, which has subsequently become the Department of Communities and Local Government.

Yvette Cooper was promoted to Housing Minister on 28 June 2007 when close ally Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister. Cooper did not have cabinet rank but attended cabinet meetings, having to introduce the HIPS scheme into the public eye following her promotion, to much controversy. She managed to dodge the blame for HIPS, by being an ally of Gordon Browns. Ruth Kelly was blamed instead.^[4]

Since Gordon Brown's elevation to the position of Prime Minister, the Labour government has identified affordable housing as one of its core objectives. In July 2007, she told Parliament: "Unless we act now by 2026 first time buyers will find average house prices are ten times their salary. That could lead to real social inequality and injustice. Every part of the country needs more affordable homes - in the North and the South, in urban and rural communities".^[5]

In the reshuffle following Peter Hain's resignation as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on 24 January 2008, Yvette became the first woman to be promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury. As husband Ed Balls was already a cabinet minister, her promotion to the cabinet meant that they were the first married couple to serve as cabinet ministers simultaneously.

She, like her husband, is notorious for not answering questions in media interviews but bulldozing her way to giving the spin she wants. During interviews on BBC's One O'Clock News, the World at One and Newsnight on 23rd April 2008, as just one example, she was asked the same question about the abolition of the 10p tax band more than once and didn't answer. Jeremy Paxman repeated his question more than once but Ms Cooper answered a different one to Mr Paxman's frustration (cf his interview with Michael Howard)

She married Ed Balls in Eastbourne on January 10 1998 and they have two daughters (born 1999 and 2004) and one son (born 2001). He was elected to parliament at the 2005 General Election for the neighbouring constituency of Normanton and so, together, they form one of five sets of married couples in the Commons (Nicholas Winterton and Ann Winterton; Andrew Mackay and Julie Kirkbride; Peter Robinson and Iris Robinson; Alan Keen and Ann Keen - to this could be added Gordon Prentice and Bridget Prentice who entered the Commons as man and wife, but have been divorced for many years). When their second child was born, Cooper became the first serving minister to take maternity leave in 2001. She enjoys swimming and portrait painting.

• Yvette Cooper official site
• Guardian Politics Ask Aristotle - Yvette Cooper MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Yvette Cooper MP
• BBC Politics page

• Politics Show July 2000
• Becoming the first government minister to admit smoking cannabis in 2000