Gareth Thomas

Gareth Thomas was first elected as the Labour and Co-operative MP for Harrow West in 1997. With a background in teaching, he was able to unseat the Conservative incumbent Robert Hughes on a swing of 17.5 per cent with a majority of 1,240. From 1997 to 1999, he was a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, and was also involved in passing the Pollution Prevention and Control Bill. In 2000 he became chair of the Co-operative party, a post he held until June 2019. He joined Tony Blair’s government in 2003 as parliamentary under-secretary at the Department for International Development (DfID) and was promoted in 2008 to become minister of state jointly at DfID and the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform. Following the 2015 general election, he held several shadow positions including shadow business minister, shadow Cabinet Office minister, shadow Europe minister and shadow local government minister. Thomas campaigned against Brexit in the 2016 referendum and has urged the government to take action on climate change, including decarbonisation of energy production, investment in infrastructure for electric vehicles, and increasing the number of trees in the UK.