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Ed Balls

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The Right Honourable
Ed Balls
MP
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
Incumbent
Assumed office
20 January 2011
LeaderEd Miliband
Preceded byAlan Johnson
Shadow Home Secretary
In office
8 October 2010 – 20 January 2011
LeaderEd Miliband
Preceded byAlan Johnson
Succeeded byYvette Cooper
Shadow Secretary of State for Education
In office
11 May 2010 – 8 October 2010
LeaderHarriet Harman
Ed Miliband
Preceded byMichael Gove (CSF)
Succeeded byAndy Burnham
Secretary of State for Children,
Schools and Families
In office
28 June 2007 – 11 May 2010
Prime MinisterGordon Brown
Preceded byAlan Johnson (EaS)
Succeeded byMichael Gove (E)
Economic Secretary to the Treasury
In office
6 May 2006 – 28 June 2007
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byIvan Lewis
Succeeded byKitty Ussher
Member of Parliament
for Morley and Outwood
Incumbent
Assumed office
6 May 2010
Preceded byConstituency Created
Majority1,101 (2.3%)
Member of Parliament
for Normanton
In office
5 May 2005 – 6 May 2010
Preceded byBill O'Brien
Succeeded byConstituency Abolished
Majority10,002 (51.2%)
Personal details
Born (1967-02-25) 25 February 1967 (age 57)
Norwich, Norfolk, England
Political partyLabour Co-operative
SpouseYvette Cooper
ChildrenEllie
Joe
Maddy
Alma materKeble College, Oxford
Harvard University
ProfessionPolitician
WebsiteOfficial website

Edward Michael Balls (born 25 February 1967) is a British Labour Party and Co-operative Party[2] politician, who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Morley and Outwood since 2010, and is the current Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. From 2005 to 2010, he was the MP for Normanton and he served as Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families under Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010. Balls is married to current Shadow Home Secretary and fellow Labour MP Yvette Cooper. In June 2007 they became the first married couple to serve together in a British Cabinet when Cooper became Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

Early life

Balls' father is the zoologist Michael Balls,[3] criticised for campaigning against the grammar school system in Norfolk, then sending his son to fee-paying schools.[4] His mother is Carolyn Janet Balls (born Riseborough).[5] Balls was born in Norwich and educated at Bawburgh Primary School in Norwich, Crossdale Drive Primary School in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, and then the private all-boys Nottingham High School, where he played the violin.[6][7] He went on to attend Keble College, Oxford, where he gained a First in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, graduating ahead of David Cameron.[8] Later he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard, where he was a Kennedy Scholar specialising in Economics.[8]

Balls joined the Labour Party when he was 16 years old.[9] While at Oxford he was a partially active member of the Labour Club, but also signed up to the Conservative Association, "because they used to book top-flight political speakers, and only members were allowed to attend their lectures" according to friends.[10] Whilst at Oxford Balls dressed as a Nazi at a "dictators" party.[11] He was also a founding member of the all-male drinking club, The Steamers.[12][13]

Early career

Balls was from 1989 to 1990 a teaching fellow in the Department of Economics, Harvard University.[14]

He joined the Financial Times in 1990 as a lead economic writer until his appointment as an economic adviser to Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown in 1994. When Labour won the 1997 general election, Brown became Chancellor and Balls continued to work as an economic adviser to him. He went on to serve as Chairman of HM Treasury's Council of Economic Advisers.

While he was chief economic adviser to the Treasury, Balls attended the Bilderberg annual conference of politicians, financiers and businessmen in 2001 and 2003, and returned to the United Kingdom on Conrad Black's private jet on both occasions. In 2010 when after details were reported in the press, Balls commented, "It saved the taxpayer the cost of a plane fare and on both occasions I declared it at the time to the permanent secretary in the normal way."[15]

Political career

In July 2004, Balls was selected to stand as Labour and Co-operative candidate for the parliamentary seat of Normanton in West Yorkshire, a Labour stronghold whose MP, Bill O'Brien, was retiring. He stepped down as chief economic adviser to the Treasury, but was given a position at the Smith Institute, a political think tank. HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office confirmed that "the normal and proper procedures were followed."[16]

Member of Parliament

In the 2005 general election, he was elected MP for Normanton with a majority of 10,002 and 51.2% of the vote. After the Boundary Commission proposed boundary changes which would abolish the constituency, Balls ran a campaign, in connection with the local newspaper the Wakefield Express,[17] to save the seat and, together with the three other Wakefield MPs (his wife Yvette Cooper, Mary Creagh and Jon Trickett), fought an unsuccessful High Court challenge against the Boundary Commission's proposals.

In March 2007 he was selected to be the Labour Party candidate for the new Morley and Outwood constituency, which contains parts of the abolished Normanton and Morley and Rothwell constituencies.[18]

Cabinet

Balls became Economic Secretary to the Treasury, a junior ministerial position in HM Treasury, in the government reshuffle of May 2006. When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister on 27 Jun 2007, Balls was promoted to Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

In October 2008, Balls announced that the government had decided to scrap SATs tests for 14-year-olds,[19] a move which was broadly welcomed by teachers, parent groups and opposition MPs.[20][21] The decision to continue with SATs tests for 11-year-olds was described by head teachers' leader Mick Brookes as a missed opportunity.[22]

Balls sponsored the Children, Schools and Families Bill which had its first reading on 19 November 2009.[23] Part of the proposed legislation will see regulation of parents who home educate their children in England, introduced in response to the Badman Review, with annual inspections to determine quality of education and welfare of the child. Home educators across the UK petitioned their MPs to remove the proposed legislation.[24]

Several parts of the bill, including the proposed register for home educators, and compulsory sex education lessons, were abandoned as they had failed to gain cross party support prior to the pending May 2010 election.[25]

Labour leadership election

Main article: Labour Party (UK) leadership election, 2010

At the 2010 general election, Balls narrowly won the newly-created Morley and Outwood seat with 37.6% of the vote.[26][27] The general election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Conservatives having the most votes and seats, but no overall majority. Several days after the election, on 11 May, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats announced that they would form a coalition government, shortly after Gordon Brown resigned as both Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party.

Balls announced, in Nottingham, on 19 May 2010 that he was standing in the election to replace Brown. Balls was the third candidate to secure the minimum of 33 nominations from members of the Parliamentary Labour Party in order to enter the leadership race. The other contenders were former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, former Health Secretary Andy Burnham, backbencher Diane Abbott and former Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who would go on to win.

Shadow Cabinet

New Labour Leader Ed Miliband appointed Balls Shadow Home Secretary on 8 October 2010, a job he held until 20 January 2011, when the resignation of Alan Johnson due to "personal reasons" led Miliband to announce Balls as Labour's Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.[28] As Shadow Chancellor, Balls regularly appears with Miliband at joint press conferences relating to Labour policy. Together with Miliband, Balls has promoted a "five-point plan for jobs and growth" since he took office as Shadow Chancellor. The plan is described as aimed at helping the UK economy, and involves reinstating the bouns tax to fund building more social homes, bringing forward long-term investment, cutting VAT to 17.5%, cutting VAT on home improvements to 5% for one year, and instigating a one year national insurance break.[29] Balls revealed in January 2012 that he will continue with the public sector pay freeze which led to opposition from Len McCluskey. He had a bruising exchange in the House of Commons with George Osborne regarding the Libor rate scandal, where Osborne accused Balls of being involved in the scandal.

Political activities

Balls has played a prominent role in the Fabian Society. In 1992 he wrote a Fabian pamphlet advocating Bank of England independence, a policy adopted when Gordon Brown became Chancellor in 1997.[8][30]

Balls was elected Vice-Chair of the Fabian Society for 2006 and Chair of the Fabian Society for 2007. As Vice-Chair of the Fabian Society, he launched the Fabian Life Chances Commission report in April 2006[31] and opened the Society's Next Decade lecture series in November 2006,[32] arguing for closer European cooperation on the environment.

Balls has been a central figure in New Labour's economic reform agenda. He and Gordon Brown have differed from the Blairites in being keen to stress their roots in Labour party intellectual traditions such as Fabianism and the co-operative movement as well as their modernising credentials in policy and electoral terms. In a New Statesman interview in March 2006, Martin Bright writes that Balls "says the use of the term 'socialist' is less of a problem for his generation than it has been for older politicians like Blair and Brown, who remain bruised by the ideological warfare of the 1970s and 1980s".[33]

"When I was at college, the economic system in eastern Europe was crumbling. We didn't have to ask the question of whether we should adopt a globally integrated, market-based model. For me, it is now a question of what values you have. Socialism, as represented by the Labour Party, the Fabian Society, the Co-operative movement, is a tradition I can be proud of", said Balls.[33]

Personal life

He married Yvette Cooper MP, who later became Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in Eastbourne on 10 January 1998.[34] Cooper is Member of Parliament for Morley & Outwood's neighbouring constituency of Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford. They have three children.[35] Cooper and Balls were the first married couple to serve together in the British cabinet.[36]

In 2010 Balls was fined £60 and given three points on his licence for talking on his mobile telephone whilst driving.[37]

Ed Balls is a fan of Norwich City.[38]

In September 2010, the British Stammering Association announced that Balls had become a patron of the Association. Its Chief Executive, Norbert Lieckfeldt, paid tribute to him for having been very public in his declaration that he has at times struggled with his speech.[39][40][41]

Allegations over allowances

Main article: Disclosure of expenses of British Members of Parliament

In September 2007, with his wife Yvette Cooper MP, he was accused by Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker of "breaking the spirit of Commons rules" by using MPs' allowances to help pay for a £655,000 home in north London.[42] Balls and Cooper bought a four bedroom house in Stoke Newington, and registered this as their second home (rather than their home in Castleford, West Yorkshire) in order to qualify for up to £44,000 a year to subsidise a reported £438,000 mortgage under the Commons Additional Costs Allowance, of which they claimed £24,400. Both worked in London full-time and their children attended local London schools. Balls and Cooper claimed that "The whole family travel between their Yorkshire home and London each week when Parliament is sitting. As they are all in London during the week, their children have always attended the nearest school to their London house."[43]

Balls and Cooper "flipped" the designation of their second home three times within the space of two years.[44] In June 2008 they were referred to the Standards Commissioner over allegations that they were claiming expenses for what was effectively their main home in London, their combined claim was £24,000 i.e. "slightly more" than the single MP allowance.[44] The commissioner exonerated them, adding that their motives weren't for profit as they paid full capital gains tax.[44]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "The fighter –– Ed Balls". The New Statesman. 22 July 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2011.
  2. ^ "Ed Balls". The Labour Party. Retrieved 25 June 2010. Ed Balls is the Labour and Co-operative MP for Morley and Outwood
  3. ^ "Ed Balls' father urges review of animal testing laws". Daily Mail. London. 23 July 2007. Retrieved 11 October 2010.
  4. ^ Polly Toynbee: How can she attack free schools when she educated her own children privately?, Toby Young, 25 May 2010
  5. ^ Who's Who, published by A & C Black, ISBN (2001 edition) 0 7136 5432 5
  6. ^ "Ed Balls: Running his race to the beat of the people's drum". London: The Independent. 12 September 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2011.
  7. ^ "Ed Balls MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury". Cooperatives Europe. Retrieved 11 June 2011.
  8. ^ a b c John Rentoul (30 March 2011). "Origins of the Cameron-Balls Feud". The Independent. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
  9. ^ Drury, Ian (5 November 2008). "Number of career politicians in Cabinet is 'deeply unhealthy', says minister Hazel Blears". Daily Mail. London. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  10. ^ Revealed: How Ed Balls was a Tory under Thatcher, Guy Adamns, The Independent, 5 July 2006
  11. ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198939/A-degree-decadence-The-Oxbridge-student-clubs-make-Camerons-Bullingdon-chums-look-like-Girl-Guides.html?ICO=most_read_module
  12. ^ Neil Sears (26 September 2008). "I was only obeying orders ... or how Schools Secretary 'Eddie' Balls dressed as a German officer". Dailymail.co.uk. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
  13. ^ Allen, David. "Labour's private school heroes". Newstatesman.com. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
  14. ^ http://www.party.coop/person/ed-balls/
  15. ^ Brian Brady (25 July 2010). "Ed Balls twice hitched a life in Lord Black's jet". London: The Independent. Retrieved 25 July 2010.
  16. ^ Winnett, Robert (12 November 2007). "The Daily Telegraph - Call for inquiry over Balls's think tank". London: Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  17. ^ "News, Sport, Jobs, Property, Motors, Entertainments & More". Wakefield Express. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  18. ^ Department of the Official Report (Hansard), House of Commons, Westminster. "Hansard - House of Commons - 23 Apr 2007. col.754". Parliament.the-stationery-office.com. Retrieved 14 June 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ^ Curtis, Polly (14 October 2008). "Sats for 14-year-olds are scrapped". guardian.co.uk. London: Guardian News & Media. Retrieved 25 October 2008.
  20. ^ Garner, Richard (15 October 2008). "National tests for 14-year-olds are scrapped after marking chaos". The Independent. London: Independent News & Media. Retrieved 25 October 2008.
  21. ^ Milland, Gabriel (15 October 2008). "U-turn As Balls Axes Sats Test". Daily Express. Northern and Shell Media Publications. Retrieved 25 October 2008.
  22. ^ "Tests scrapped for 14-year-olds". BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. 14 October 2008. Retrieved 25 October 2008.
  23. ^ "Children, Schools and Families Bill 2009-10". Services.parliament.uk. 8 April 2010. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  24. ^ Home educators in record petition of MPs BBC News 9 December 2009
  25. ^ Ed Balls drops key education reforms BBC News 7 April 2010
  26. ^ "Election 2010". The BBC. Retrieved 10 May 2010.
  27. ^ "Education secretary Ed Balls avoids 'Portillo moment'". BBC News. 7 May 2010. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  28. ^ "Alan Johnson 'to quit front-line politics'". BBC News. 20 January 2011.
  29. ^ "Labour's plan for jobs and growth | The Labour Party". labour.org.uk. 19 October 2011. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
  30. ^ "Ed Balls Schools Secretary". The Fabian Society. Retrieved 27 December 2009.[dead link]
  31. ^ "The Fabian Society - Narrowing the Gap: The final report of the Fabian Commission on Life Chances and Child Poverty". Fabians.org.uk. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  32. ^ "Fabian Society - Ed Balls 'Next Decade' lecture: Britain's Next Decade". Web.archive.org. 1 November 2006. Archived from the original on 10 June 2008. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  33. ^ a b "Interview: Ed Balls". New Statesman. 20 March 2006. Archived from the original on 10 August 2011. Retrieved 14 June 2010. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  34. ^ "Debrett's People of Today 2011", Extract Editions, 2011, p77, Retrieved 8 August 2011. http://www.exacteditions.com/exact/browse/455/1210/7772/3/113 Template:WebCite
  35. ^ "The Daily Telegraph - Health minister celebrates birth". London: Telegraph.co.uk. 27 August 2001. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  36. ^ "The Cabinet: Who's Who". BBC News. 30 November 2009. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  37. ^ Jason Groves (27 April 2010). "General Election 2010: Ed Balls fined for driving his car whilst on his mobile". London: The Daily Mail. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  38. ^ "Ed Balls-profile". London: The Telegraph. 27 October 2007. Retrieved 10 June 2010.
  39. ^ "Ed Balls MP becomes BSA patron". Speaking Out. British Stammering Association. Winter 2010. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
  40. ^ Riddell, Mary (23 January 2010). "Ed Balls: People who stammer avoid certain situations,but in my job you can't". London: The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 15 June 2011. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  41. ^ "I've battled a stammer all my life, reveals Schools Secretary Ed Balls". London: Daily Mail. 21 October 2009. Retrieved 15 June 2011. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  42. ^ Hope, Christopher (24 September 2007). "The Daily Telegraph - Ed Balls claims £27,000 subsidy for 2nd home". London: Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  43. ^ Hope, Christopher; Gammell, Kara (24 September 2007). "Ed Balls claims £27,000 subsidy for 2nd home". London: Telegraph. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  44. ^ a b c Prince, Rosa (15 May 2009). "Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper 'flipped' homes three times: MPs' expenses". London: Telegraph. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Normanton
2005–2010 		Constituency abolished
New constituency Member of Parliament for Morley and Outwood
2010–present 		Incumbent
Political offices
Preceded by Economic Secretary to the Treasury
2006–2007 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families
2007–2010 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Secretary of State for Education
2010 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Home Secretary
2010–2011 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
2011–present 		Incumbent

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