Hazel Blears

The Right Honourable Hazel Blears MP
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
Incumbent
Assumed office 27 June 2007
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Ruth Kelly
Minister without Portfolio
In office 5 May 2006 – 27 June 2007
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Ian McCartney
Succeeded by	Harriet Harman
Member of Parliament for Salford
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 May 1997
Preceded by	Stanley Orme
Majority	7,945 (35.2%)
Personal details
Born	(1956-05-14) 14 May 1956 Salford, UK
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Michael Halsall
Children	No children
Alma mater	Nottingham Trent University
Profession	Solicitor
Website	www.hazelblears.co.uk

Hazel Anne Blears, MP (born 14 May 1956) is a British politician and is the Labour Member of Parliament for Salford. She was Minister without Portfolio and Labour Party Chair between 5 May 2006 and 24 June 2007. Since 27 June 2007 she has served as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Early life and education

Hazel Blears was born in Salford in 1956, the daughter of a maintenance fitter. She grew up in Salford and as a young child, Hazel and her brother Stephen both played street urchins in the film A Taste of Honey which was filmed in Salford in 1961, when Blears was aged five.

Blears was educated at the Worsley Wardley High School (which became part of Salford College, then closed) on Mardale Avenue in Wardley, Greater Manchester then The Eccles (Sixth Form) College on Chatsworth Road in Eccles. She went to Trent Polytechnic, graduating with a BA (Hons) degree in Law, and later, the Chester College of Law, where she completed a law conversion course in 1977.

Career outside Parliament

Hazel Blears started her career in Salford as a trainee solicitor with Salford City Council in 1978. After two years, went into private practice for a year, before joining Rossendale Borough Council as a solicitor in 1981 and in the same year was elected as a Branch Secretary in NALGO. In 1983 she became a solicitor for Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council and later became Manchester City Council's education solicitor. In the following year, she was elected as a councillor to Salford City Council and she served on the council until 1992. She was Chair of the Salford Community Health Council for several years.

Parliamentary career

She stood in Tatton in 1987 against Neil Hamilton and in 1992 in Bury South where she lost by 800 votes. At the 1997 general election she was elected as the Labour MP for Salford, her home seat.

After the election she became the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister of State at the Department of Health Alan Milburn until 1998. She spent ten months in 1999 as PPS to then Chief Secretary to the Treasury Andrew Smith.

In the run-up to the 2001 General Election, Blears was a member and later deputy head of the Labour Party campaign team, a group of backbenchers tasked with campaigning around the country. This raised her national profile. Blears has been a supporter of the Lowry theatre and art gallery in her constituency.

Ministerial career

After the 2001 General Election, Blears entered Tony Blair's government as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health, responsible for Public Health. In this job she launched the Government's "5-a-day" campaign to get people to eat more fruit and vegetables.

Blears was promoted in 2003 to Minister of State at the Home Office, with responsibilities for policing, crime reduction and counter terrorism. She was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party in 2003. After the 2005 General Election, on 7 June 2005 she became a Member of the Privy Council. In a cabinet reshuffle following Council Elections on 4 May 2006, Tony Blair appointed her Party Chair replacing Ian McCartney.

Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

On 28 June 2007, the new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown appointed Blears as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, replacing Ruth Kelly. In April 2008 it was rumoured that Brown was planning a summer reshuffle in which Blears would be demoted. However, when the reshuffle occurred in the autumn, it was confirmed she was to retain her position.

Deputy Leadership candidate

On 24 February 2007 she announced her candidacy for the election for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, making her one of six candidates for the job formerly held by John Prescott. However, Harriet Harman won the election on 24 June 2007, with Hazel Blears coming last.

In the announcement of her candidacy, she said Labour must remain the party of "success and aspiration". Calling on the party not to distance itself from Tony Blair, she called for the renewal of the "big tent" coalition which brought Labour victories in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Blears' supporters included Cabinet Ministers Ruth Kelly, Tessa Jowell, Hilary Armstrong and John Reid; Health Ministers Caroline Flint and Andy Burnham; European Parliament Labour leader Gary Titley; and other MPs such as Stephen Pound, John Heppell and Kali Mountford.

Throughout her campaign, Blears stressed the importance of a full-time Deputy Leader who acts as its campaigner-in-chief. Responding to media labelling of the candidates she stated, "No more Blairites, no more Brownites, we are all Labour. Granita is shut."

On 12 June 2007, part of a building in Dean Farrar Street in Central London which houses the Blears campaign office collapsed. [1] [2]

Voting record

Hazel Blears has voted on key issues since 2001 as follows:

• Voted for introducing government registers on everyone in Britain backed up by ID cards.
• Voted for introducing foundation hospitals.
• Voted for introducing student top-up fees.
• Voted for the Iraq War
• Voted against investigating the Iraq war.
• Voted for replacing Trident.
• Voted for the hunting ban.
• Voted for equal gay rights.

Private life

She married Michael Halsall, a solicitor, on 21 October 1989 in Salford. They have no children. Halsall is a triker and introduced Blears to tricycling; she is now a triker in her own right.

Along with several other Labour women MPs, Blears is a member of a tap-dancing troupe known as the Division Belles. Other members include Caroline Flint, Beverley Hughes, Laura Moffatt, Meg Munn, Joan Ryan and Dari Taylor.

Although brought up as a Methodist, she attends the Catholic SS Peter & Paul Church in Pendleton, as her husband is Catholic. Her brother Stephen is a bus driver, and she has repeatedly mentioned this in political speeches.

Criticism

In March 2005, while Home Office minister with responsibility for counter-terrorism, Blears implied that section 44 of the terrorism act would disproportionally affect the Muslim community.

Dealing with the counter-terrorist threat and the fact that at the moment the threat is most likely to come from those people associated with an extreme form of Islam, or falsely hiding behind Islam, if you like, in terms of justifying their activities, inevitably means that some of our counter-terrorist powers will be disproportionately experienced by people in the Muslim community.

Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, responded: "The idea that the police are disproportionately targeting the community, such a statement can only exacerbate feelings." Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament, said: "Has she joined the BNP? You don’t expect a minister, a responsible person, to make these remarks." Ray Powell, President of the National Black Police Association, described the minister’s language as "intemperate and inconsiderate". "I think it is wrong of her to say they should accept it is used disproportionately. That comment would not be helpful and does not instil confidence within the Muslim community," he said.

In August 2005, Blears, while standing in for Home Secretary Charles Clarke (who was on holiday), suggested the 'rebranding' of ethnic minorities in favour of adopting US-style hyphenated titles such as Asian-British-Canadian. This proposal was quickly withdrawn by the Home Office, as the government moved to distance itself from the idea. Nevertheless this inspired Private Eye magazine to 'rebrand' Blears as "That stupid woman who Charles Clarke left in charge while he was sunning himself on holiday".

In 2006, Blears was accused of "hypocrisy" after joining protests against the closure of hospital departments in her constituency, even though these closures were consistent with the policies of the government of which she was a senior member. Health Emergency's head of campaigns Geoff Martin said:

Here we have Cabinet ministers, totally bound up in the Government's hospital cuts and closure programme, riding on the backs of anti-cuts campaigns in their own constituencies in a bid to save their own political skins. Frankly, it stinks. There are 29 hospitals up and down the country facing the immediate threat of cuts and closure to key services in 2007. Will Hazel Blears be joining demonstrators on the streets in each of those areas or is this just a classic case of "not in my back yard"?

In May 2008, Blears was criticised for a statement on BBC's Question Time where she informed the panel and its viewers that there were 3 million people unemployed in the United Kingdom when Labour came to power in 1997 (the official figure was 1,602,500).

In February 2009, a article by George Monbiot in The Guardian strongly criticised Hazel Blears, asking "What exactly do you stand for Hazel, except election?".

In April 2009, Blears is named in an email from Neil Hill, a disabled 56 year old pensioner, who received a £3000 legal bill from Blears' dept. On receving the legal bill, Mr Hill hanged himself, directly naming Blears' actions as a contributing factor. Both Blears and the local housing authority who had attempted to impose a rent rise deny any responsibility for his death.

Political Prospects

Blears has held the safe labour seat of Salford since 1997. Parliamentary constituencies for Salford and Eccles are being restructured for the next General Election after a recent Boundary Review, with her current constituency being abolished. Hazel Blears defeated Ian Stewart in the selection contest to be the Labour Parliamentary Candidate for the new parliamentary constituency of Salford and Eccles.

Styles

• Miss Hazel Blears (1956–1997)
• Hazel Blears MP (1997–2005)
• The Rt. Hon. Hazel Blears MP (2005–)

External links

• Hazel for Deputy Official Deputy leadership campaign site
• Hazel Blears MP Official parliamentary site
• Home Office - Hazel Blears MP Official biography
• Communities Department profile
• "Guardian" 2009 article
• Times May 2007 article
• New Statesman 2007 article
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Hazel Blears MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Hazel Blears MP

Audio clips

• WPRadio Online interview on Women's Parliamentary Radio just before taking over role as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government