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Falklands : New Minister with Falklands Responsibilities
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 09.10.2008 (Article Archived on 23.10.2008)

In Gordon Browns recent Cabinet reshuffle Gillian Merron MP (LAB Lincoln) has been moved to Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – a post previously held by Meg Munn MP.

Photo (c) Crown Copyright - Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

NEW MINISTER WITH FALKLANDS RESPONSIBILITIES

By J. Brock (FINN)

 

 

 

Gillian Merron MP 

 

 

 

 

In Gordon Browns recent Cabinet reshuffle Gillian Merron MP (LAB Lincoln) has been moved to Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – a post previously held by Meg Munn MP.

 

Born in Ilford, Essex, in 1959 of Jewish origins, daughter of a factory storekeeper and a shop assistant, Gillian Merron was educated at Wanstead High School and Lancaster University, where she took a BSc in management sciences.

 

Ms Merron joined the Labour Party at twenty-three, and worked as a business development adviser, then a local government officer, before becoming an official of the National Union of Public Employees, now Unison and co-ordinated Labour’s Central Region campaigns in the 1992 general election and 1994 European Parliamentary elections.

 

Selected from a women-only list in 1997, she won the weathervane seat of Lincoln comfortably at her first attempt, after boundary changes made it once again winnable for Labour. In her first term in Parliament she served as a PPS to two Ministers at the Ministry of Defence, when she visited the Falkland Islands. She returned again in 2001 with only a fractional swing to the Conservatives and spent a year as PPS to John Reid as Northern Ireland Secretary. In 2002 she became an assistant Government Whip, and a full Government Whip from 2004 until her promotion to the Department for Transport.

 

After four years as a Parliamentary aide and four more as a Whip, she finally ‘took off’ as junior Aviation Minister at the Department for Transport in 2006. A year later she moved sideways to the Cabinet Office, where Gordon Brown made her Parliamentary Secretary for Social Exclusion and the Civil Service. She also became Minister for the East Midlands. In January 2008 she moved sideways again to the Department for International Development in the reshuffle following Peter Hain’s resignation.

 

Ms Merron has taken part in a scheme to familiarise herself with the RAF and put forward a Ten-Minute Rule Bill, the Football Sponsorship Levy Bill, aimed at spreading television revenue around the smaller clubs like her own Lincoln Imps. Her concerns range from vocational training to transport and is particularly interested in the link between exercise and sport and is a former unpaid director of East Midlands Sport.

 

Organisational interests include Amnesty International, the Cats Protection League, Lincoln Civic Trust, Unison and the Co-operative Party. She is also a supporter of the Holocaust Educational Trust, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and Girl-guiding UK. She has visited Israel as a guest of Labour Friends of Israel.

 

Gillian is single,  likes films, football, running and the gym. In 2005 she did five weeks volunteering in Guyana with VSO, working with the Guyana Teachers Union.

 

Source: Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

 


Parliamentary Career

• Entered Parliament, May 1997 general election
• Member Trade and Industry Select Committee 1997-98,
• PPS to Doug Henderson as Minister of State, MoD 1998-99
• PPS to Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean as Minister of State, MoD 1999-2001
• PPS to Dr John Reid as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 2001-02
• Assistant Government Whip 2002-04
• Government Whip 2004-06
• Member Selection Select Committee 2005-06
• Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport 2006-07
• Cabinet Office Minister 2007-08
• Minister for the East Midlands 2007-08
• Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International Development 2008
• Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Oct 2008-

Non-Political Career
• Business development adviser Derbyshire Co-operative Development Agency 1982-85
• Local government officer Derbyshire County Council 1985-87
• Full-time official East Midlands National Union of Public Employees (now UNISON) 1987-95
• Senior regional officer for Lincolnshire, UNISON 1995-97



 

 

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