Matthew Toby Perkins (born 12 August 1970) is a British
Labour Party politician who has served as
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
Chesterfield
Chesterfield may refer to:
Places Canada
* Rural Municipality of Chesterfield No. 261, Saskatchewan
* Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut United Kingdom
* Chesterfield, Derbyshire, a market town in England
** Chesterfield (UK Parliament constitue ...
since
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
. He has been
Shadow Minister for Apprentices and Lifelong Learning since April 2020. Previously he was
Shadow Minister for Small Business under
Ed Miliband
Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband ...
and
Shadow Minister for the Armed Forces under
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 ...
.
Early life and career
Perkins was born in
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...
on 12 August 1970.
He is the son of
V. F. Perkins and his wife Teresa. He has a sister, Polly. He is a great-grandson of
A. P. Herbert
Sir Alan Patrick Herbert CH (A. P. Herbert, 24 September 1890 – 11 November 1971), was an English humorist, novelist, playwright, law reformist, and in 1935–1950 an independent Member of Parliament for Oxford University. Born in Ashtead, Su ...
, Independent Member of Parliament for
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
(1935–1950) and a grandson of the poet
John Pudney
John Sleigh Pudney (19 January 1909 – 10 November 1977) was a British poet, journalist and author. He was known especially for his popular poetry written during the Second World War, but he also wrote novels, short stories and children's fict ...
. Perkins attended
Trinity Catholic School
Trinity Catholic School is a mixed Catholic secondary school and sixth form located in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England.
Following an Ofsted inspection in 2009, the school was given a Grade 3 (satisfactory) rating for its overall performanc ...
in
Leamington Spa
Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or simply Leamington (), is a spa town and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Originally a small village called Leamington Priors, it grew into a spa town in the 18th century following ...
, and
Silverdale Comprehensive School in
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...
.
He worked in the private sector from 1987 until elected to Parliament in 2010. He was in IT Sales: consultant and Regional Manager for the Prime Time Recruitment organisation, and subsequently set up a rugby product business.
Perkins was a councillor for Rother Ward on Chesterfield Borough Council from 2003 to 2011.
He was a Director of Families First Co-operative, a social enterprise that ran an early years nursery in Chesterfield, and set up the Chesterfield Flood Victims Appeal, which raised over £13,000 for victims of the floods in Chesterfield in 2007.
Parliamentary career
Perkins' defeat of Chesterfield's sitting Liberal Democrat MP,
Paul Holmes, in 2010 saw him overturn a majority of 3,000 to win by 549 votes, despite a national swing against the Labour Party.
Perkins was largely elected owing to retention of the existing Labour vote, as there was a 7.5% swing towards the Conservative Party in the constituency with Labour making a net gain of 61 votes in comparison to 2005.
Following Perkins' election to Parliament in 2010, he asked a question in
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...
's first post-election
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs, officially known as Questions to the Prime Minister, while colloquially known as Prime Minister's Question Time) is a constitutional convention in the United Kingdom, currently held as a single session every W ...
in the 2010 session and was named by the ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
'' as one of the best six newcomers of the first 100 days of the 2010 parliament.
He backed
David Miliband
David Wright Miliband (born 15 July 1965) is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the International Rescue Committee and a former British Labour Party politician. He was the Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010 and the Member of P ...
for the Labour leadership. Under
Ed Miliband
Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband ...
, Perkins became the first of the 2010 intake of new members to speak from the front bench when becoming a Shadow Education Minister in September 2010 under
Andy Burnham
Andrew Murray Burnham (born 7 January 1970) is a British politician who has served as Mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017. He served in Gordon Brown's Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2007 to 2008, Culture Secretary from 2008 ...
. He was moved into the Shadow Business team as Shadow Minister for Enterprise and Small Business in 2011, under
Chuka Umunna
Chuka Harrison Umunna (; born 17 October 1978) is a British retired politician who served as Member of Parliament (UK), Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham (UK Parliament constituency), Streatham from 2010 United Kingdom general election, ...
. As Shadow Business Minister he was responsible for Labour's policies on Access to Finance, Small Businesses, Regulation/ de-regulation, Insolvency, Procurement, Pubs and the High Street.
He was elected to the Communities and Local Government Select Committee.
In July 2014,
Douglas Alexander
Douglas Garven Alexander (born 26 October 1967) is a Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, previously Paisley South, from 1997 until his defeat in 2015. During this time, he served as S ...
appointed Perkins one of three Labour Party Deputy Chairs for the 2015 general election campaign, alongside
Gloria De Piero
Gloria De Piero (born 21 December 1972) is a British television and radio presenter, and former Labour Party politician.
Prior to her political career, she was the political editor of GMTV. A member of the Labour Party, she was first elect ...
and
Jonathan Ashworth
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (born 14 October 1978) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions since 2021. A member of the Labour and Co-operative parties, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) f ...
. He had previously run Labour's
by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
campaign in
Wythenshawe and Sale East
Wythenshawe and Sale East is a parliamentary constituency in the city of Manchester and the borough of Trafford. It returns one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past ...
. He also worked on by-election campaigns in Corby, Bradford West and Eastleigh.
Perkins belongs to
Labour Friends of Israel
Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) is a group in the Parliament of the United Kingdom that promotes support for a strong bilateral relationship between Britain and Israel, and seeks to strengthen ties between the British Labour Party and the Isra ...
and
Labour Friends of Palestine & the Middle East. He is the current chair of the All Party Parliamentary Pub Group, the All Party Parliamentary group on Tennis and was chair of the Labour Friends of the Forces from January 2016 to October 2020.
In parliament he has led Opposition Day debates for Labour on pub company regulation, Sunday trading laws for the Olympics, on the Deregulation Bill alongside
Chi Onwurah
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (born 12 April 1965) is a British Labour Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for Newcastle upon Tyne Central since 2010.
She was shadow minister for Industrial Strategy, Science and Innovation u ...
. He has secured adjournment debates against Derbyshire fire station closures, which led to a U-turn on plans to close 18 Derbyshire fire stations, and against the sale of legal highs.
Perkins proposed in 2016, via a 10-minute
private members' bill
A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in whi ...
, that "
God Save the Queen
"God Save the King" is the national and/or royal anthem of the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies. The author of the tune is unknown and it may originate in plainchant, bu ...
" should cease to be the anthem used by English teams at international sporting fixtures. The second reading was due for 4 March, but was cancelled.
Perkins was Shadow Minister for the Armed Forces in the Shadow Cabinet of
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 ...
.
However, he resigned on 27 June 2016, along with many of his colleagues. He then 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 Parliamen ...
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 leadership election. He nominated
Keir Starmer
Sir Keir Rodney Starmer (; born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and barrister who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party since 2020. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras ...
in the 2020 Labour Party leadership contest.
He campaigned for the UK to remain a member of the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
ahead of the
EU Referendum
This is a list of referendums related to the European Union, or referendums related to the European Communities, which were predecessors of the European Union. Since 1972, a total of 48 referendums have been held by EU member states, candidate st ...
on 23 June 2016.
In October 2016, Perkins supported the
Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen
On 26 March 2015, Saudi Arabia, leading a coalition of nine countries from West Asia and North Africa, launched an intervention in the Yemeni Civil War in response to calls from the president of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi for military supp ...
against the Shia
Houthis
The Houthi movement (; ar, ٱلْحُوثِيُّون ''al-Ḥūthīyūn'' ), officially called Ansar Allah (' ''Partisans of God'' or ''Supporters of God'') and colloquially simply Houthis, is an Islamist political and armed movement that ...
.
In April 2020, Perkins was appointed as
Shadow Minister for Apprenticeships and Lifelong Learning by new party leader
Keir Starmer
Sir Keir Rodney Starmer (; born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and barrister who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party since 2020. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras ...
.
Personal life
Perkins was diagnosed with
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
in December 2020. He was married in 1996 and separated in 2018, after it was revealed he had been having an affair with his aide, Amanda Collumbine, whom he has lived with in Chesterfield, Derbyshire since January 2019
References
External links
Official website*
His page on the Labour Party UK websiteChesterfield Borough Council Councillor DetailsElectoral history and profileat ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perkins, Toby
1970 births
Living people
Councillors in Derbyshire
Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Labour Friends of Israel
People from Chesterfield, Derbyshire
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present
People educated at Silverdale School, Sheffield