Ivan Lewis | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2017 | |
| Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland | |
| In office 7 October 2013 – 13 September 2015 | |
| Leader | Ed Miliband Harriet Harman(Acting) |
| Preceded by | Vernon Coaker |
| Succeeded by | Vernon Coaker |
| Shadow Secretary of State for International Development | |
| In office 7 October 2011 – 7 October 2013 | |
| Leader | Ed Miliband |
| Preceded by | Harriet Harman |
| Succeeded by | Jim Murphy |
| Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport | |
| In office 8 October 2010 – 7 October 2011 | |
| Leader | Ed Miliband |
| Preceded by | Ben Bradshaw |
| Succeeded by | Harriet Harman |
| Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs | |
| In office 8 June 2009 – 11 May 2010 | |
| Prime Minister | Gordon Brown |
| Preceded by | Bill Rammell |
| Succeeded by | The Lord Howell of Guildford |
| Minister of State for International Development | |
| In office 5 October 2008 – 8 June 2009 | |
| Prime Minister | Gordon Brown |
| Preceded by | Gillian Merron |
| Succeeded by | Michael Foster |
| Minister of State for Care Services | |
| In office 15 May 2006 – 3 October 2008 | |
| Prime Minister | Tony Blair Gordon Brown |
| Preceded by | The Lord Warner |
| Succeeded by | Phil Hope |
| Member of Parliament forBury South | |
| In office 1 May 1997 – 6 November 2019 | |
| Preceded by | David Sumberg |
| Succeeded by | Christian Wakeford |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1967-03-04)4 March 1967 (age 58) |
| Political party | Labour(Before 2018; suspended 2017-2018) Independent(2018–present) |
| Spouse | Juliette Fox(1990–2006) |
| Children | 2 |
| Alma mater | Bury College |
Ivan Lewis (born 4 March 1967) is a British politician who served asMember of Parliament (MP) forBury South from1997 to 2019, initially as a member of theLabour Party then as an independent from 2017.
After serving in various ministerial positions, including Foreign Affairs, International Development, Education and Health under Prime MinistersTony Blair andGordon Brown from 2001 to 2010, Lewis wasShadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport until October 2011, when he was appointedShadow Secretary of State for International Development. In the October 2013 Shadow Cabinet reshuffle, he becameShadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. FollowingJeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader in September 2015, Lewis was dismissed from the shadow cabinet.
Lewis was suspended from the Labour Party in November 2017 after sexual misconduct allegations.[1] He resigned from the Labour Party in December 2018, citing his concerns about antisemitism in the party and the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.[2][3][4] Lewis sat as an independent MP until the 2019 General Election, when he stood as an independent candidate in Bury South. During the campaign Lewis urged voters to support the Conservatives rather than himself when it became clear his candidature could allow Labour to win and inadvertently boost Corbyn's chances of becoming prime minister.
Lewis was born inPrestwich, in theBury South constituency which he later represented, into aBritish Jewish family. He was educated at Manchester Jewish Day School in Prestwich (primary school) and atWilliam Hulme Grammar School inManchester, followed by Stand Sixth Form College andBury College.[citation needed]Before his election in 1997, he worked in thevoluntary sector from 1986 to 1997 for the learning disabilities support group Contact Community Care Group and as Chief Executive of the Manchester Jewish Federation.[5]
Lewis also served as a Councillor onBury Metropolitan Borough Council for the Sedgley ward, being elected in 1990 at 23 years of age and held the position of Chairman of the Social Services Committee.[6]
Lewis was first elected to Parliament in the 1997 Labour landslide with a 13% swing and a majority of over 12,000 votes over the incumbent ConservativeDavid Sumberg who had served since 1983. He further increased his majority in the 2001 General Election. He served asParliamentary Private Secretary toSecretary of State for Trade and IndustryStephen Byers from July 1999 to June 2001.
Between June 2001 and June 2002, Lewis was theParliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Young People and Learning within theDepartment for Education and Skills and then for Adult Learning and Skills. From June 2002 to May 2005, he became Under-Secretary of State for Skills and Vocational Education in the same department.
As a junior minister Lewis was responsible for the White Paper21st Century Skills: Realising our Potential, launched in 2003. It proposed increased support for adults seeking to gain technical and craft qualifications where regional skills shortages existed, removing the age limit for Modern Apprentices and making information and communications technology the third essential "skill for life" alongside literacy and numeracy.[7]
Lewis was also involved with a scheme to introduce apprenticeships for 14-year-olds alongside their schooling, commenting that Britain needed to challenge "uniquely snobbish" attitudes toward vocational education[8]
Lewis then served asEconomic Secretary to the Treasury from May 2005 to May 2006. He was moved to ajunior ministerial position in theDepartment of Health in the Cabinet reshuffle in May 2006.
On 29 June 2007, inGordon Brown's first reshuffle asPrime Minister he was re-appointed to the post ofParliamentary under-secretary of state in theDepartment of Health, the only junior minister to survive the reshuffle where he held on to the brief for social care and added mental health services.
As Minister for Care Services, Lewis led the introduction of Putting People First, the then government's policy (accepted by the incoming coalition government) to personalise the provision of social care services for the elderly and people with disabilities. The policy offered adults eligible for care services the ability choose their own care services from a "personal budget", and shifted some responsibilities from the NHS to councils.[9]
Lewis described his own policy changes as "arguably the biggest redistribution of power from the state to the citizen that we have ever seen", while David Brindle ofThe Guardian praised him for having done a "huge amount" to raise the profile of social care.[10]
In March 2008, Lewis warned that the Labour Party was losing touch with ordinary people under the leadership ofGordon Brown in an article written forProgress Online. Lewis stated he believed the Government had lost touch with what fairness meant to the mainstream majority. He wrote:
We cannot afford to be reticent or selective about what fair means in today's Britain. Fairness means everyone paying an appropriate level of tax. It is true there is nothing wrong with being 'stinking rich' providing you pay a significantly higher proportion in tax than your fellow citizen with a modest disposable income. Fairness means a Labour government not remaining silent when any company rips the consumer off or directors of poorly performing organisations in the public or private sector receive extortionate bonuses. Fairness means equal treatment and opportunities for women and ethnic minorities in the workplace, not skilled white men denied career opportunities in the name of equality.[11]
In 2008, theDepartment of Health confirmed Lewis had made an apology for his behaviour when in 2007 he began sending increasingly intimate text messages to then aide Susie Mason, which ultimately led to her registering concern, and successfully seeking an alternative position within theCivil Service before leaving for theprivate sector.[citation needed]Nick Cohen pointed out inThe Observer on 14 September 2008 that the revelations about Lewis's private life followed articles by Lewis which constituted coded attacks on Gordon Brown.[12]
In his bookThe End of the Party: The Rise and Fall of New Labour, the journalistAndrew Rawnsley suggested that Lewis was a target of "Gordon Brown's Hit Squad". In relation to the Susie Mason story, Rawnsley wrote: "Yet there were few Labour MPs who doubted that the story was planted by No. 10, which was privy to a confidential Whitehall report about the civil servant. The hit on Lewis stunned Ministers who regarded themselves as unshockable". The story was leaked twelve months after the events occurred. Senior civil servants dealing with the Mason issue advised that no action should be taken against Lewis.
Brown's former communications chief,Damian McBride, confessed in his memoir that he reprimanded Lewis, then junior health minister, in 2008 for commenting on tax policy, only to be passed the message that Lewis would not be intimidated. Angered, McBride then fed to theNews of the World a story about Lewis allegedly pestering a young female civil servant in his private office. McBride expressed deep remorse in retrospect, saying he had been "a cruel, vindictive, thoughtless bastard".[13]
On 3 October 2008, Lewis moved to theDepartment for International Development (DfID). There, he spearheaded a campaign to persuade other Governments and multilateral agencies to prioritise maternal health.[citation needed]
He remained there until June 2009, when he was promoted to Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Lewis was responsible for the UK's Middle East policy, the UK's relations with the US and China, counter terrorism and counter proliferation.
In 2009,The Guardian reported, following his promise to assist British users of the drug "Vioxx" (produced byMerck) with legal fees in their attempt to claim damages, Lewis changed his mind within hours of an"expensive lobbying effort" by Merck. Vioxx has been shown to increase the risk ofheart failure in users.[14] It transpired subsequently that because of his promise to assist, the Department of Health replaced Lewis on all Vioxx related issues with another Minister.
In October 2010, Lewis was elected by his fellow Labour MPs to the Shadow Cabinet and appointedShadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport by Labour LeaderEd Miliband.
In September 2011, Lewis was reappointed to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for International Development.[15] Lewis is a member ofLabour Friends of Israel.[16]
In October 2013, Lewis was moved in a Shadow Cabinet reshuffle from the International Development portfolio to the Shadow Northern Ireland one.[17] However, despite his reshuffle, which was seen by many commentators as a demotion,[18] he fulfilled a standing commitment to outline Labour's vision on International Development at The University of Manchester, during Manchester Policy Week.[19] In the September 2015 Labour shadow cabinet reshuffle under the newly elected leaderJeremy Corbyn, Lewis offered to continue in the role of Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland temporarily amid the troubling political situation there. Lewis reported that Corbyn had rejected his offer and informed him by text message that he had decided to give the role to another MP.[20]
Lewis was one of the key figures influencing the Labour Party's political thinking and direction duringEd Miliband's leadership. He was one of the co-originators of the notion ofOne Nation Labour, which formed the foundation of Miliband's keynote speech at theLabour Party Conference held in Manchester in September 2012.[citation needed]
Lewis had originally floated the concept in a chapter written forThe Purple Book, a collection of essays written by mainly senior figures in the party offering new policy ideas.[21]
In February 2016, Lewis announced his intention to seek the Labour candidacy nomination for the post of the directly electedMayor of Greater Manchester. On 9 August that year, the Labour Party announced thatAndy Burnham would be the mayoral candidate.
On 23 November 2017, the Labour Party suspended Lewis from the party subject to investigation following allegations of sexual harassment.[22][23] On 20 December 2018, Lewis resigned from the Labour Party in protest at alleged antisemitism in the party and Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Lewis initially intended to stand as an independent for re-election at the2019 general election, but later withdrew his candidacy (although his name still appeared on ballot papers, as he withdrew too late to formally exit the contest). Instead, Lewis urged his supporters to vote for theConservative candidateChristian Wakeford. Lewis ultimately polled 1,366 votes as an independent candidate.
Lewis married Juliette Fox inStockport in June 1990. They have two sons, and are now divorced.[citation needed]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forBury South 1997–2019 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Economic Secretary to the Treasury 2005–2006 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of State for Care Services 2006–2008 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of State for International Development 2008–2009 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs 2009–2010 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 2010–2011 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Secretary of State for International Development 2011–2013 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 2013–2015 | Succeeded by |
