Kevin Barron

The Right Honourable Kevin Barron MP
Member of Parliament for Rother Valley
Incumbent
Assumed office 9 June 1983
Preceded by	Peter Hardy
Majority	5,866 (12.5%)
Personal details
Born	26 October 1946 (1946-10-26) Tadcaster, Yorkshire, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Carol McGrath (Deceased)
Alma mater	Ruskin College
Website	www.kevinbarronmp.com

Kevin John Barron (born 26 October 1946) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Rother Valley since 1983.

Early life

Kevin Barron, the son of Richard and Edna Barron, was born at Hazlewood Castle in Tadcaster, Yorkshire. He was educated at the Maltby Hall Secondary Modern School (same school as Fred Trueman, and now known as Maltby Comprehensive School) on Braithwell Road in Maltby; the University of Sheffield, and at Ruskin College where he gained a Diploma in Labour Studies in 1977, where he was a Militant tendency supporter.

On leaving school in 1962, Barron became an electrician at the local Maltby Colliery. He spent the next 23 years working in the coal industry. In 1982 he became president of the Rotherham Trades Union Congress. He was a member of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), who later expelled him for disloyalty. Once, on picketing duty outside Maltby colliery he was struck on the head by a police baton. He was a political ally of Arthur Scargill.

Parliamentary career

In 1983 Peter Hardy, the Labour MP for Rother Valley, decided to switch consistuencies and chose to fight the equally safe neighbouring new seat of Wentworth. With NUM backing Kevin Barron secured the nomination and was duly elected as the Labour MP for Rother Valley at the 1983 general election.

In 1985 Kevin Barron was made a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition Neil Kinnock, a position he held until the 1987 general election. Kinnock gave Barron a frontbench job in 1988 as an opposition spokesman on Energy but he was dropped following the 1992 general election. Barron was returned to the front bench as a spokesman on Employment by the new leader John Smith, and after Smith's death Tony Blair moved Barron to speak on Health matters.

Kevin Barron was a leading figure in the campaign to rewrite Clause IV under the new leadership of Tony Blair and it came as a surprise that there was no job in government for him after the victorious 1997 general election.

Barron served for eight years on the senior Intelligence and Security Committee and was made a Privy Councillor in 2001. He was made Chairman of the influential Health Select Committee after the 2005 general election.

Barron has been a Member of the General Medical Council since 1999, and is passionately anti smoking.

Following the MP's expenses row, Barron placed his expenses claims cover sheets in the window of his constituency office in Laughton Road, Dinnington. This information was already in the public domain, however, and provided no further illumination on what his line-level expenses were. There remain some unanswered questions about Kevin Barron's expenses such as why his mortgage payments increased to over £2,000 per month - more than the interest rate rise detailed in his expenses suggested it should.

In May 2010, Barron was returned to Westminster as the MP for Rother Valley with a severely reduced majority.

Personal life

Barron married Carol McGrath in 1969 in Rother Valley and has a son and two daughters. Carol died suddenly in June 2008 prompting widespread tributes.

External links

Official website

• Blake's Parliamentary Yearbook
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Electoral history and profile at The Guardian
• Voting record at PublicWhip.org
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou.com
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Profile at BBC News Democracy Live

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Peter Hardy	Member of Parliament for Rother Valley 1983–present	Incumbent