Dame Margaret Olivia Hillier (born 14 February 1969), known as Meg Hillier, is a British
Labour and Co-operative
Labour and Co-operative Party (often abbreviated Labour Co-op; cy, Llafur a'r Blaid Gydweithredol) is a description used by candidates in United Kingdom elections who stand on behalf of both the Labour Party and the Co-operative Party.
Candidat ...
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...
who was elected as the
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MP) for
Hackney South and Shoreditch
Hackney South and Shoreditch is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Meg Hillier of Labour Co-op.
History
The seat was created in February 1974 from the former seat of Shoreditch and Finsbury.
...
at the
2005 general election, was a junior
government minister
A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ‘ prime minister’ ...
(2007–10) and was succeeded by
Caroline Flint as Shadow
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change was a British government cabinet position from 2008 to 2016. The Department of Energy and Climate Change was created on 3 October 2008 when then- Prime Minister Gordon Brow ...
in the
Labour Party October 2011 reshuffle. She has chaired the
Public Accounts Committee since 2015.
Early life and career
Hillier was educated at
Portsmouth High School, a private school for girls in
Southsea
Southsea is a seaside resort and a geographic area of Portsmouth, Portsea Island in England. Southsea is located 1.8 miles (2.8 km) to the south of Portsmouth's inner city-centre. Southsea is not a separate town as all of Portsea Island's ...
,
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
, followed by
St Hilda's College at the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
, where she read
Philosophy, Politics and Economics. During her time there she was elected Librarian of the
Oxford Union Society
The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest ...
.
Hillier worked as a
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
in regional press and social housing media and was elected as a
Councillor
A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries.
Canada
Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...
in the
London Borough of Islington
The London Borough of Islington ( ) is a London borough in Inner London. Whilst the majority of the district is located in north London, the borough also includes a significant area to the south which forms part of central London. Islington has ...
in
1994
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...
, representing the Sussex ward and serving as the
Mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...
of
Islington
Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ...
in
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
, before standing down from the Council in
2002
File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia a ...
. She was elected as a founding Member of the
London Assembly
The London Assembly is a 25-member elected body, part of the Greater London Authority, that scrutinises the activities of the Mayor of London and has the power, with a two-thirds super-majority, to amend the Mayor's annual budget and to reject ...
for
North East London at the first
London Assembly election of 2000, serving on the Assembly until 2004, and was a board member of
Transport for London until she was elected to
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. ...
.
Parliamentary career
In 2004, Hillier was selected as the Labour candidate to contest the
Hackney South and Shoreditch
Hackney South and Shoreditch is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Meg Hillier of Labour Co-op.
History
The seat was created in February 1974 from the former seat of Shoreditch and Finsbury.
...
through an
all-women shortlist
All-women shortlists (AWS) is an affirmative action practice intended to increase the proportion of female Members of Parliament (MPs) in the United Kingdom, allowing only women to stand in particular constituencies for a particular politica ...
. She was elected to the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
at the
2005 general election following the retirement of the Labour MP
Brian Sedgemore
Brian Charles John Sedgemore (17 March 1937 – 29 April 2015) was a British politician who served as a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) from 1974 to 1979, and again from 1983 to 2005. He defected to the Liberal Democrats shortly after stand ...
.
During the election campaign, Sedgemore resigned from Labour and joined the
Liberal Democrats in protest at the attack on Iraq. Hillier retained the safe seat with a majority of more than 10,000 votes. She made her
maiden speech
A maiden speech is the first speech given by a newly elected or appointed member of a legislature or parliament.
Traditions surrounding maiden speeches vary from country to country. In many Westminster system governments, there is a convention th ...
on 24 May 2005, noting there were more men in the House of Commons that day than there had ever been
women MPs.
She served as member of the
Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee
The Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee (or simply the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee) is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The committee's remit is to examine the expenditure, adminis ...
for a year until she was appointed
Parliamentary Private Secretary
A Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) is a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom who acts as an unpaid assistant to a minister or shadow minister. They are selected from backbench MPs as the 'eyes and ears' of the minister in the ...
to the
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
The secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, also referred to as the levelling up secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the overall leadership and strategic direction o ...
Ruth Kelly
Ruth Maria Kelly (born 9 May 1968) is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolton West from 1997 until she stood down in 2010. Previously, she served as the Secretary of State for Transport, ...
in 2006. In June 2007, she was appointed a
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (or just Parliamentary Secretary, particularly in departments not led by a Secretary of State) is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the UK government, immediately junior to a Ministe ...
at the
Home Office.
During maternity leave beginning in March 2009, her ministerial role was taken over by
Shahid Malik
Shahid Rafique Malik ( ur, شاہد رفیق ملک نے; born 24 November 1967) is a British Labour Party politician, a technology and media industry chairman, a visiting professor, and chairman and adviser to a number of non-profit organis ...
. In March 2008, Hillier voted with the Government in favour of nationwide Post Office closures, including seven in
Hackney, of which her constituency forms a part.
In December 2009, while promoting the unpopular
National Identity Card scheme as Identity Minister in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
, she admitted she had forgotten her own ID card, attributing the error to the demands of looking after her baby.
In June 2015, Hillier was elected Chairman of the
Public Accounts Committee in succession to
Margaret Hodge
Dame Margaret Eve Hodge, Lady Hodge, (née Oppenheimer, formerly Watson; born 8 September 1944) is a British politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barking since 1994. A member of the Labour Party, she previously served as ...
. She was, as a result, among the 100 most influential people in the NHS according to the
Health Service Journal
''Health Service Journal'' (''HSJ'') is a news service that covers policy and management in the National Health Service (NHS) in England.
History
The '' Poor Law Officers' Journal'' was established in 1892. In 1930, it changed its name after ...
in 2016. As chair, she has been critical of the
Troubled Families programme, saying that the PAC's conclusions on the programme were "far more serious" than "a slap on the wrist" for ministers.
An ardent supporter of the Remain campaign during the 2016 EU referendum, Meg Hillier announced that she was "devastated" that the UK voted to leave the EU and that the decision was fuelled by "xenophobic undertones".
She supported
Owen Smith
Owen Smith (born 2 May 1970) is a former Labour Party politician and subsequently a British lobbyist, who has been the UK government relations director for pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb since 2020. Smith was Member of Parliame ...
in the failed attempt to replace
Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
in the
2016 Labour Party (UK) leadership election
The 2016 Labour Party leadership election was called when a challenge to Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party arose following criticism of his approach to the Remain campaign in the referendum on membership of the European Union and q ...
.
Hillier has served
Trustee
Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, is a synonym for anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility to ...
of the
War Memorials Trust since 2001.
She stood for election as Speaker of the House of Commons during
2019 Speaker of the British House of Commons election
Nineteen or 19 may refer to:
* 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20
* one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019
Films
* ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film
* ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film
Music ...
. However, she was unsuccessful, securing 10 votes (or 1.8%) in the first round, and coming in 7th out of seven candidates.
Hillier was appointed
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
(DBE) in the
2021 Birthday Honours
The Queen's Birthday Honours for 2021 are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded ...
for political and parliamentary service.
Personal life
Hillier married Joe Simpson in 1997; the couple have three children. She is a
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
.
Signatory to letter to Pope Francis to allow ordination of married men to the Catholic priesthood
, catholicherald.co.uk; accessed 12 May 2015.
References
External links
Meg Hillier MP official website
*
Debrett's People of Today
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hillier, Meg
1969 births
Living people
Alumni of St Hilda's College, Oxford
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
British Roman Catholics
Councillors in the London Borough of Islington
Hackney Members of Parliament
Labour Co-operative MPs for English constituencies
Labour Members of the London Assembly
People educated at Portsmouth High School (Southsea)
People from Hampstead
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
21st-century British women politicians
21st-century English women
21st-century English people
Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Women councillors in England