John Denham (politician)

Prior to being elected as an MP, John Denham served as a local Councillor, initially as a member of the Hampshire County Council in 1981, where he remained until 1989 when he was elected as a councillor on Southampton City Council, on which he served until 1993 and was the Chairman of the City's Housing Committee. He was selected to contest the Southampton Itchen seat at the 1983 general election following the defection to the Social Democratic Party of the sitting Labour MP Bob Mitchell. The election proved to be a close run affair with Denham coming in third place, Mitchell in second, and the victor was the Conservative Christopher Chope who gained the seat with a majority of 5,290.

Denham again contested the seat at the 1987 general election, he overtook Mitchell into second place but was still behind Chope who held his seat with a majority of 6,716.

Denham became a member of the Environment Select committee in 1993, and was promoted to the frontbench by Tony Blair in 1995 as a spokesman on social security. After the 1997 general election he entered the Blair government as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Social Security, being promoted within the department to the rank of Minister of State in 1998. Following the promotion to the cabinet of Alan Milburn, Denham moved to the Department of Health in 1999.

Following the 2001 general election he became a Minister of State at the Home Office, until he resigned in March 2003 over the Iraq War.[4]

After his resignation, Denham was appointed in July 2003 as chairman of the influential Home Affairs Select Committee. Despite speculation following the 2005 general election that he would return as a member of the Government, he did not do so, although in the post-election reshuffle there were reports that he was offered – and accepted – the cabinet post of Chief Secretary to the Treasury, before being told that the post had been assigned instead to Des Browne.

Though regarded as a Blairite, Denham was a regular critic of the Blair administration as chair of the Home Affairs committee.

Following Brown's installation as Prime Minister in June 2007, Denham was named to take over the new post of Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills.[5] In September 2007, he announced funding for students taking second degrees would be re-allocated to allow more students to take first degrees: adult and continuing education institutions such as the Open University, Birkbeck, University of London, and lifelong learning departments throughout the country, have voiced angry protest at the proposals.[6][7][8]

During Denham's tenure as Secretary of State, he also announced an extension of maintenance grants to students from households earning up to £60,000 a year.[9] The changes mean that an additional 50,000 students would be entitled to a full grant and an additional 100,000 students would be entitled to a partial grant.

As part of the Cabinet reshuffle on 5 June 2009, Denham was appointed to the role of Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. He replaced Hazel Blears who had resigned from the post on 3 June 2009.

On 7 October 2011, Denham announced that he would be standing down at the 2015 general election.[10]

In June 2012, Denham said that Labour knew as early as 2005 that the immigration estimates they had relied on were "vastly wrong".[11]

Denham is Chair of the Southern Policy Centre,[12] which he co-founded with Professor Francis Davis [13] as a thinktank responding to challenges and opportunities for southern England with specialisms in open data research and new forms of public participation in politics.[14]

He was seen as a government loyalist and University of Southampton Students' Union had revoked his lifetime membership for his support of tuition fees. He married Ruth Eleanor Dixon[1] and they have a son, Edward, and a daughter, Rosie (a former Labour councillor in Exeter); they have now divorced. He has another child, Louis, born in 2005.

In an interview[15] with the Daily Telegraph, Denham announced he was a secular humanist, although he also said he learnt a lot from his Church of England upbringing.