Nick Brown

For other people named Nick Brown, see Nick Brown (disambiguation).

The Right Honourable Nick Brown MP
Opposition Chief Whip of the House of Commons
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 October 2016
Leader	Jeremy Corbyn
Preceded by	Rosie Winterton
In office 11 May 2010 – 7 October 2010
Leader	Harriet Harman (Acting) Ed Miliband
Preceded by	Patrick McLoughlin
Succeeded by	Rosie Winterton
Chief Whip of the House of Commons Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury
In office 3 October 2008 – 11 May 2010
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Geoff Hoon
Succeeded by	Patrick McLoughlin
In office 2 May 1997 – 27 July 1998
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Alastair Goodlad
Succeeded by	Ann Taylor
Minister for the North East
In office 28 June 2007 – 11 May 2010
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Deputy Chief Government Whip Treasurer of the Household
In office 28 June 2007 – 3 October 2008
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Bob Ainsworth
Succeeded by	Tommy McAvoy
Minister of State for Work
In office 11 June 2001 – 13 June 2003
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Des Browne
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
In office 27 July 1998 – 11 June 2001
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Jack Cunningham
Succeeded by	Margaret Beckett (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons Acting
In office 12 May 1994 – 21 July 1994
Leader	Margaret Beckett (Acting)
Preceded by	Margaret Beckett
Succeeded by	Margaret Beckett
Member of Parliament for Newcastle upon Tyne East Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (1997–2010)
Incumbent
Assumed office 9 June 1983
Preceded by	Mike Thomas
Majority	15,463 (35.7%)
Personal details
Born	Nicholas Hugh Brown (1950-06-13) 13 June 1950 Hawkhurst, England, UK
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	University of Manchester
Website	Official website Commons website

Nicholas Hugh Brown (born 13 June 1950) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle upon Tyne East since 1983. He has served as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Minister of State for Work and Pensions and Deputy Chief Whip. He has also served three separate terms as the Labour Party's Chief Whip, from 1997 to 1998, 2008 to 2010, and from 2016 to the present. His terms as chief whip have spanned periods in both government and opposition.

Early life

Brown was born in Hawkhurst, Kent, and brought up in nearby Tunbridge Wells, attending Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys before studying at the University of Manchester. After graduating, he worked in advertising for Procter & Gamble, but in 1978 he moved to be legal adviser to the Northern Region of the GMBATU, based in Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1980 he was elected to Newcastle City Council, representing Walker ward. His role in the union gave him a role in maximising the union's influence in Labour Party selections.

Political career

When Mike Thomas, the sitting Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East, defected to the SDP, Brown was chosen as the new Labour Party candidate for the seat, easily retaining it for Labour at the 1983 general election. He joined Labour's front bench in 1985 as a spokesman on Legal Affairs; from 1988 he was a Treasury spokesman and from 1994 he shadowed Health.

Originally elected to the Commons in the same year as Gordon Brown and Tony Blair he was initially close to both men but over time he became his namesake Brown's staunchest ally, though the two are unrelated. In the 1994 Labour leadership election he acted as Brown's unofficial campaign manager, and according to Gordon Brown's biographer Paul Routledge, advised against him pulling out of the contest in Blair's favour.

In 1995 he was appointed Deputy Chief Whip and played a central role in the close Parliament in trying to defeat the Conservatives. After Labour's election victory in 1997, he was appointed Chief Whip, but stayed there only for a year, and was moved to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1998. This change, which followed the publication of the Routledge biography earlier that year, was widely seen as a demotion, and ascribed to his close connection with Brown.

His tenure at MAFF saw several animal health crises ending with the 2001 foot and mouth crisis. Brown's handling of the outbreak, which some in the media and politics used to attack the government, was criticised, though throughout he maintained the support of the farming and food industries and the veterinary profession. Suggestions that a vaccination strategy should have been practised in preference to the culling of hundreds of thousands of animals, made with the benefit of hindsight, did not help his cause, and he was demoted out to be the Minister of Work, with non-voting Cabinet rank, at the Department for Work and Pensions after the general election of 2001. In June 2003, he was dropped from the Government altogether, receiving news of his sacking by Tony Blair during the course of a party held to mark his 20 years as an MP.

Brown remains closely allied to Gordon Brown. In 2004 he was one of the organisers of a rebellion over the government's proposals for student finance, but hours before the vote announced that he had received concessions from the Government and would now support it. It was suspected that the Chancellor had ordered him to back down, but the affair cost him some credibility. On 29 June 2007 he was announced as Brown's new Deputy Chief Whip and Minister for the North East. Following a government reshuffle, he was returned to his original government position of Government Chief Whip, retaining his position as Minister for the North East.

In 2009, Brown was put in charge of investigating questionable expense claims by Labour MPs. According to The Daily Telegraph, between 2004 and 2008, he himself claimed a total of £87,708 for his constituency home including £18,800 for food. Allowances sought, without submission of receipts, included £200 a month for repairs, £200 a month for service and maintenance and £250 a month for a cleaner.

Brown's mortgage interest repayments for 2007-8 totalled £6,600, but he also claimed a total of £23,068, just £15 below the maximum allowable amount for the year. The claim included £4,800 for food – the maximum allowable amount – £2,880 for repairs and insurance, £2,880 for services, £897.65 for cleaning, £1,640 for phones and £1,810 for utilities. Brown, however, has said that he saved the taxpayer a considerable amount of money by turning down a Government car and driver upon being made Chief Whip, the annual cost of which would have been around £100,000.

On 29 January 2010, during the News of the World phone hacking affair, Brown said that his landline may have been bugged in an "amateurish attempt" in 1998, around the time of his outing. He was also contacted by police in the West of England in 2003 who told him that they were pursuing a phone-tapping prosecution and he was one of those who may have been targeted. The case collapsed when it reached court and full details of the allegations were never disclosed. Brown said that: "Given that it was near [Prince Charles' home] Highgrove, my assumption was that this might involve the Royal Family. But I was never explicitly told that."

On 29 September 2010, newly elected Labour Party leader Ed Miliband asked Brown not to stand for re-election as Opposition Chief Whip due to the need for a "break from the past".

On 6 October 2016, Brown was re-appointed Labour Chief Whip, under Jeremy Corbyn, with whom he had an unlikely personal friendship, and he went on to play an important role in the Parliamentary debates and votes over Brexit during 2018 and 2019. This included the largest ever defeat suffered by a government, on Tuesday 15 January 2019. This reappointment means that Brown is the only person to have held the job three times, under three different leaders, and in three different decades. From a position in 1997 of trying to ensure Labour's dissident factions supported Tony Blair's New Labour policies, from 2016 he has been charged with trying to ensure Labour's rebellious Blairites support Jeremy Corbyn's policies.

He is the chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Speedway racing.

He is a member of Labour Friends of Israel.

Personal life

Nick Brown is openly gay and came out in 1998 whilst in the cabinet; this was controversial due to tabloid coverage of Brown's sexual orientation. In 2001, he was granted the freedom of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne, on the same day as Alan Shearer. Brown is a supporter of Humanists UK,. He is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.

External links

• Nick Brown MP official constituency website
• Profile at the Labour Party
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou