Meg Hillier

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Meg Hillier MP

Member of Parliament for Hackney South and Shoreditch
Incumbent
Assumed office 5 May 2005
Preceded by	Brian Sedgemore
Majority	10,204 (31.7%)
Member of the London Assembly for North East
In office 4 May 2000 – 10 June 2004
Preceded by	New constituency
Succeeded by	Jennette Arnold

Born	14 February 1969 (1969-02-14) (age 39)
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour Co-operative
Alma mater	St Hilda's College, Oxford

Margaret Hillier known as Meg Hillier (born February 14, 1969) is a British politician and Labour and Co-operative Party Member of Parliament for Hackney South and Shoreditch and a junior government minister.

Hillier was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford and during her time there was elected Librarian of the Oxford Union Society. She was not prominently involved in the Oxford University Labour Club. She worked as a journalist and was elected as a councillor in the London Borough of Islington in 1994, serving as the Mayor of Islington in 1998, before standing down from the council in 2002. She was elected as a founding member of the London Assembly for North East London at the first London Assembly election of 2000, she served on the assembly until 2004, and became a board member of Transport for London, a position she relinquished on her election to parliament.

Hillier was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election following the retirement of the veteran Labour MP Brian Sedgemore. During the election campaign Sedgemore resigned from the Labour Party and joined the Liberal Democrats [1]. That aside, Hillier held the seat comfortably with a majority of 10,204. She made her maiden speech on May 24, 2005, in which she noted that there were more men in the House of Commons today than there have ever been women MPs [2].

She served as member of the Northern Ireland select committee for a year until she was became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Ruth Kelly in 2006. In June 2007 she was appointed a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office. She is married with two children, and resides in Islington, London.

In March 2008, Meg Hillier voted with the Government in favour of nationwide Post Office closures, including 7 in the London Borough of Hackney of which her constituency forms a part[3].