Peter Hain

The Right Honourable Peter Hain MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Wales
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 May 2010
Leader	Harriet Harman Ed Miliband
Preceded by	Cheryl Gillan
Secretary of State for Wales
In office 5 June 2009 – 11 May 2010
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Paul Murphy
Succeeded by	Cheryl Gillan
In office 24 October 2002 – 24 January 2008
Prime Minister	Tony Blair Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Paul Murphy
Succeeded by	Paul Murphy
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
In office 28 June 2007 – 24 January 2008
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	John Hutton
Succeeded by	James Purnell
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
In office 6 May 2005 – 27 June 2007
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Paul Murphy
Succeeded by	Shaun Woodward
Leader of the House of Commons
In office 11 June 2003 – 6 May 2005
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	John Reid
Succeeded by	Geoff Hoon
Lord Privy Seal
In office 13 June 2003 – 6 May 2005
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	The Lord Williams of Mostyn
Succeeded by	Geoff Hoon
Member of Parliament for Neath
Incumbent
Assumed office 4 April 1991
Preceded by	Donald Coleman
Majority	9,775 (26.3%)
Personal details
Born	16 February 1950 (1950-02-16) Nairobi, Kenya Colony
Political party	Labour (1977–present)
Other political affiliations	Liberal (Before 1977)
Alma mater	Queen Mary, University of London University of Sussex
Religion	Agnosticism

Peter Gerald Hain (born 16 February 1950) is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Welsh constituency of Neath since 1991, and has served in the Cabinets of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, firstly as Leader of the House of Commons under Blair and both Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Secretary of State for Wales under Brown. He resigned from ministerial office over the failure to declare donations to his campaign for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party in 2008. He is currently Shadow Welsh Secretary.

He came to the UK from South Africa as a teenager, and was a noted anti-apartheid campaigner in the 1970s. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the ill-fated Alternative Vote system campaign in May 2011, together with his close friend and fellow ex-Young Liberal Richard Burden, M.P.

Early life

Hain was born in the Kenya Colony, but moved to the Union of South Africa about a year later. His parents were anti-apartheid activists in the Liberal Party of South Africa, for which they were made "banned persons", briefly jailed, and prevented from working.^{[citation needed]}

When Hain was 10, he was awoken in the early hours by police officers searching his bedroom for 'incriminating documents'. At 13, Hain spoke at the funeral of John Frederick Harris, a fellow anti-apartheid activist who was hanged for bombing a railway station, injuring 23 people and killing an elderly woman. As a result of police harassment, Hain's father was unable to continue his work as an architect, and the family decided to leave for the United Kingdom in April 1966.

Life in London

Hain was educated at Pretoria Boys High School and at Emanuel School, the latter of which eventually becoming a private fee-paying institution, then Queen Mary College (University of London), graduating with a first class Bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science in 1973, and the University of Sussex, obtaining an M.Phil. After university, Hain worked as a researcher for the Union of Communication Workers, rising to become their head of research.^{[citation needed]}

Anti-apartheid

Hain became chairman of the Stop The Tour campaign which disrupted tours by the South African rugby union and cricket teams in 1969 and 1970.^{[citation needed]}

In 1971 director John Goldschmidt produced a film for Granada's World in Action programme featuring Peter Hain debating Apartheid in South Africa at the Oxford Union. The film was transmitted on the ITV network.^{[citation needed]}

In 1972 he was sent a letter bomb that failed to explode because of faulty wiring. In 1976 Hain was tried for, and acquitted of, a 1974 bank robbery, allegedly having been framed by the South African Bureau of State Security (BOSS).

Joining the Liberal and Labour Parties

He joined the Liberal Party and was elected president of the Young Liberals, but in 1977 switched to Labour. The same year, he was a founder of the Anti-Nazi League and he remains a prominent supporter of Unite Against Fascism today.^{[citation needed]}

Member of Parliament

He contested Putney in the 1983 and 1987 general elections but was defeated on both occasions by Conservative David Mellor.^{[citation needed]}

He was elected to the House of Commons at the by-election in April 1991 for the Neath constituency that followed the death of the sitting member, Donald Coleman. In 1995 he became a Labour whip and in 1996 became a shadow employment minister.^{[citation needed]}

In government

After Labour's victory in the 1997 general election he joined the government, first at the Welsh Office, then as minister for Africa at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.^{[citation needed]}

In November 1999, as Africa minister he entertained Robert Mugabe in London who told him “I know you are not one of them, Peter; you are one of us,” But the following day, following an attempt by Gay Rights campaigner Peter Tatchell to carry out a 'citizen's arrest' on Mugabe, Mugabe accused Hain of being Tatchell's "wife".^{[citation needed]}

In October 2000 he set up a war avoidance team to carry messages back and forth between himself and the then-Minister of Foreign Affairs in Iraq, Tariq Aziz (a matter then confidential, which has since been put on public record in an interview with Hain by the Today programme). Team members who travelled repeatedly to Iraq on behalf of Hain variously included William Morris (Next Century Foundation), Burhan Chalabi (an Iraqi-born British businessman), and Nasser al-Khalifa (the then-Qatari Ambassador to the UK).^{[citation needed]}

Hain moved briefly to the Department of Trade and Industry before returning to the Foreign Office as minister for Europe. He was vocal in advocating joint sovereignty of Gibraltar with Spain and was accused of deliberately misrepresenting the situation The agreement was described by Michael Ancram in the UK Parliament, along with Gibraltar as a 'sell-out' which was overwhelmingly rejected in a referendum in November 2002. He remains one of the most unpopular politicians ever to visit Gibraltar.

In October 2002, he joined the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales, but continued to represent the UK at the Convention on the Future of Europe. In June 2003 he was made Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal in a cabinet reshuffle, but retained the Wales portfolio. In November 2004 Hain caused controversy among his political rivals when he claimed that "If we are tough on crime and on terrorism, as Labour is, then I think Britain will be safer under Labour".^{[citation needed]}

On 6 May 2005, following the 2005 general election, Hain was appointed as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, retaining his Welsh position also. Although previously a supporter of Irish unity, he has since retreated from this position. In August 2006, his office neither confirmed nor denied press reports that he fell asleep during a meeting with Raymond McCord – a meeting arranged to discuss McCord's concerns about the investigation into the murder of his son Raymond Jr by a loyalist paramilitary group. Sylvia, Lady Hermon, MP, who was present at the meeting, told the press that Hain nodded off at least twice.^{[citation needed]}

On 28 June 2007, he was appointed as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in addition to retaining responsibility for Wales. He was a proponent of the "tough love" measures designed to force claimants, including the sick and disabled, back to work. He saw it as an anti-poverty, full-employment agenda. He resigned from his post when the issue of donations made to his campaign funds were referred to the police.

He set a level of compensation for the taxpayer funded Financial Assistance Scheme similar to that of the Industry funded Pension Protection Fund (PPF) for those whose schemes had collapses before the establishment of the PPF. Referring to the long running Pensions Action Group campaign and speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Moneybox program on the day compensation was announced, pensions expert Ros Altmann, credited Hain and Mike O'Brien with "having been very different to deal with than their predecessors and ..willing and eager to engage and find a way to sort this out."

He returned to the post of Secretary of State for Wales in June 2009.^{[citation needed]}

Deputy leadership bid

On 12 September 2006, he announced his candidacy for the position of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. In January 2007, Hain gave an interview to the New Statesman in which he made his pitch for the Deputy Leadership and referred to the Bush administration as "the most right-wing American administration, if not ever, then in living memory" and argued that "the neo-con agenda for America has been rejected by the people and I hope that will be the case for the future". Hain was eliminated in the second round of the Deputy Leadership election, coming fifth out of the six candidates, with Harriet Harman being the successful candidate.

Resignation following donations scandal

The Guardian newspaper, on 10 January 2008, noted that Hain was being accused of not reporting £100,000 in contributions. It later emerged that a large part of these funds were channeled through a non-operating think tank, the Progressive Policies Forum. A separate £82,000 was reported. On 12 January, Peter Hain released a statement saying that, being busy with his government jobs, it was simply forgotten about, and said it was absurd to think any misconduct took place, and that he would pay back £25,000 of the money.^{[citation needed]}

The list of hidden donations included money from Steve Morgan, who was in charge of the deputy leadership bid, and Isaac Kaye, who had previously donated to the National Party in South Africa, who were pro-apartheid.^{[citation needed]}

On 24 January 2008, he resigned from several posts including his position as Work and Pensions secretary, after the Electoral Commission referred the failure to report donations to Metropolitan Police. He cited a desire to "clear his name" as the reason for his resignation. Peter Hain was the first person to resign from Gordon Brown's cabinet. He was replaced as Secretary of State for Wales by Paul Murphy, and as Secretary for Work and Pensions by James Purnell in a forced cabinet reshuffle.

Peter Hain's campaign failed to declare £103,156 of donations, contrary to electoral law. On 3 July 2008, the Metropolitan Police announced that they had referred Peter Hain's case to the Crown Prosecution Service. On 5 December 2008 the CPS announced that Hain would not be charged because Hain did not control the members' association Hain4Labour that funded his campaign.

Alternative medicine

He is a member of the Advisory Council for the College of Medicine, an alternative medicine lobbying organisation set up following the disbanding of Charles, Prince of Wales' Foundation for Integrated Health in the wake of a fraud investigation. Describing its mission as "to take forward the vision of HRH the Prince of Wales" and originally called "The College of Integrated Health," several commenatators, writing in The Guardian, The British Medical Journal and in the blogosphere, claim that this organisation is simply a re-branding of the controversial Foundation. It continues to act as an alternative medicine lobby group. The College has been referred to as "Hamlet without the Prince."

Personal life

Hain lives in Resolven in the Neath Valley. He married his first wife Patricia Western in 1975, and they have two sons. In June 2003, he married his second wife, executive recruitment consultant Elizabeth Haywood, in Neath Registry Office.

Publications

• Don't Play with Apartheid: Background to the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign by Peter Hain, 1971, Allen & U ISBN 0-0430...
• Radical Liberalism and Youth Politics by Peter Hain, 1973, Liberal Publications Department ISBN 0-900520-36-1
• Radical Regeneration by Peter Hain, 1975, Quartet Books ISBN 0-7043-1231-X
• Community Politics Edited by Peter Hain, 1976, Calder Publications Ltd ISBN 0-7145-3543-5
• Mistaken Identity: The Wrong Face of the Law by Peter Hain, 1976, Quartet Books ISBN 0-7043-3116-0
• Radicals and Socialism by Peter Hain and Simon Hebditch, 1978, Institute for Workers' Control ISBN 0-901740-55-1
• Policing the Police Edited by Peter Hain, 1979, J Calder ISBN 0-7145-3624-5
• Debate of the Decade: The Crisis and Future of the Left edited by Peter Hain, 1980, Pluto Press ISBN 0-86104-313-8
• Neighbourhood Participation by Peter Hain, 1980, M. T. Smith ISBN 0-85117-198-2
• Policing the Police Edited by Peter Hain, 1980, J Calder ISBN 0-7145-3796-9
• Reviving the Labour Party by Peter Hain, 1980, Institute for Workers' Control ISBN 0-901740-69-1
• The Democratic Alternative: A Socialist Response to Britain's Crisis by Peter Hain, 1983, Penguin Books Ltd ISBN 0-14-006955-0
• Political Trials in Britain by Peter Hain, 1985, Penguin Books Ltd ISBN 0-14-007935-1
• Political Strikes: The State and Trade Unionism in Britain by Peter Hain, 1986, Penguin Books Ltd ISBN 0-14-007962-9
• Proportional Misrepresentation by Peter Hain, 1986, Gower Publishing Ltd ISBN 0-7045-0526-6
• A Putney Plot? by Peter Hain, 1987, Spokesman Books ISBN 0-85124-481-5
• Ayes to the Left by Peter Hain, 1995, Lawrence & Wishart Ltd ISBN 0-85315-832-0
• The Peking Connection by Peter Hain, 1995, Lawrence & Wishart Ltd ISBN 0-85315-823-1
• Sing the Beloved Country: Struggle for the New South Africa by Peter Hain, 1996, Pluto Press ISBN 0-7453-0997-6
• The End of Foreign Policy? by Robin Cook and Peter Hain, 2001, Royal Institute of International Affairs ISBN 1-86203-131-2
• New Designs for Europe by Katinkya Barysch, Steven Everts, Heather Grabbe et al., introduction by Peter Hain, 2002, Centre for European Reform ISBN 1-901229-35-1
• The Future Party by Peter Hain and Ian McCartney, 2004, Catalyst Press ISBN 1-904508-10-3

External links

• Peter Hain MP official constituency website
• Profile at the Welsh Labour Party
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• 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
• Articles authored at Journalisted
• Article archive in The New Statesman
• Works by or about Peter Hain in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• 1976: Young Liberal leader cleared of robbery On this Day 9 April 1976, BBC News

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Donald Coleman	Member of Parliament for Neath 1991–present	Incumbent
Political offices
Preceded by Keith Vaz	Minister for Europe 2000–2002	Succeeded by Denis MacShane
Preceded by Paul Murphy	Secretary of State for Wales 2002–2008	Succeeded by Paul Murphy
	Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 2005–2007	Succeeded by Shaun Woodward
Preceded by John Reid	Leader of the House of Commons 2003–2005	Succeeded by Geoff Hoon
Preceded by The Lord Williams of Mostyn	Lord Privy Seal 2003–2005
Preceded by John Hutton	Secretary of State for Work and Pensions 2007–2008	Succeeded by James Purnell
Preceded by Paul Murphy	Secretary of State for Wales 2009–2010	Succeeded by Cheryl Gillan
Preceded by Cheryl Gillan	Shadow Secretary of State for Wales 2010–present	Incumbent