Jane Kennedy (politician)

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The Rt Hon Jane Kennedy
Jane Kennedy (politician)
In office
28 June 2007 – present
Preceded by John Healey
Member of Parliament
for Liverpool Wavertree
Liverpool Broadgreen (1992-1997)
In office
9 April 1992 – present
Preceded by Terry Fields
Majority 18,441
Born May 4, 1958 (1958-05-04) (age 50)
Whitehaven, Cumbria, UK
Political party Labour

Jane Elizabeth Kennedy (born 4 May 1958, as Jane Elizabeth Hodgson) is a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom, and also the current Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

Contents

[edit] Early Life

She was born in Whitehaven, Cumbria. She went to Haughton Comprehensive School (now called Haughton Community School) on Rockwell Avenue in Haughton Le Skerne, then Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College in Darlington. She trained as a social worker at the University of Liverpool. She worked in social care for Liverpool City Council from 1979 to 1988 when she became a trade union organiser for the National Union of Public Employees. In this post she was prominent in the campaign to drive members of the Militant tendency out of the labour movement.

[edit] Member of Parliament

Kennedy has been a Member of Parliament since the 1992 general election, when she was elected by the Liverpool Broadgreen constituency. She served as a member of the social security select committee from 1992 to 1994, and in 1995 she was appointed as a Labour whip.

Her constituency was abolished for the 1997 general election, but she was returned to Parliament for the new Liverpool Wavertree constituency.

After Labour's victory in the 1997 election, she served as an assistant government whip until 1998 and as a government whip until 1999, sitting on the House of Commons adminsttation select committee from 1997 to 1999.

[edit] In government

She was then appointed as a Junior Minister in the Lord Chancellor's Department from 1999 until 2001, when she became a Minister of State in the Northern Ireland Office with responsibility for security and the justice system. After the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly in October 2002, she also became responsible for education and employment in the province. In 2003, she was made a Privy Councillor.

She transferred to the Department of Work and Pensions in 2004 and then to the Department of Health after the 2005 general election, remaining a Minister of State. She left the government on 5 May 2006 during a wide-ranging reshuffle. She was initially thought by journalists to have been sacked; however, she subsequently said she took the opportunity to resign from the government, in light of concerns about the impact of the government's policies on the National Health Service. [1]

In Gordon Brown's first government since becoming Prime Minister, Kennedy was appointed as the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, now the third ranked minister in the Treasury, taking on the ministerial responsibilities of the old Paymaster General, Dawn Primarolo.

Kennedy is a member of Labour Friends of Israel, and was the organsiation's chair from 1997 to 1998. She is also a member of the Ramblers' Association.

[edit] Personal life

She married Malcolm Kennedy in 1977 in Knowsley, though divorced in 1998. They have two sons.


[edit] External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Terry Fields		 Member of Parliament for Liverpool Broadgreen
1992–1997		 Succeeded by
(constituency abolished)
Preceded by
(new constituency)		 Member of Parliament for Liverpool Wavertree
1997 – present		 Incumbent
Political offices
Preceded by
John Healey		 Financial Secretary to the Treasury
2007 – present		 Incumbent