John Healey

John Healey is the shadow housing secretary and has been the Labour member of parliament for Wentworth and Dearne since 1997. Born in Wakefield in 1960, Healey studied Social and Political Sciences at Christ’s College, Cambridge. After graduating he became deputy editor of the The House magazine before becoming a full-time campaigner on disability rights, working with several charities. Between 1990 and 1994 he worked for PR company Issues Communications and in 1992 became head of communications at the Manufacturing, Science and Finance trade union. That year he stood as the Labour candidate for Ryedale at the 1992 general election but came 30,076 votes behind the incumbent Conservative MP. In 1994 he joined the Trades Union Congress as campaigns director. At the 1997 general election, he was elected at the MP for Wentworth with a majority of almost 24,000. Following his election he joined the Education and Employment Committee and in 1999 was appointed parliamentary private secretary to the then-chancellor, Gordon Brown. After the 2001 general election he became parliamentary under-secretary at the Department for Education and Skills. He was then promoted to economic secretary, and later financial secretary, to the Treasury. A government reshuffle in 2007 saw him become communities minister. And in 2009 he became housing minister. After Labour lost power at the 2010 election he was appointed shadow health secretary but stood down from the shadow cabinet the following year. Under Jeremy Corbyn, he became shadow housing minister in 2015 before being appointed to his current position as shadow housing secretary in 2016. In the 2019 election, Healey saw his majority slashed from 14,803 to just 2,165. In the wake of the election, he said that Labour needed to speak to “Britain’s real middle” and to be patriotic and show “pride in the national flag.” In 2020, he backed Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership.