Adrian Bailey

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Adrian Edward Bailey (December 11, 1949) is a British politician, and Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament for West Bromwich West.

Bailey was born in Salisbury and was educated at the Cheltenham Grammar School, The University of Exeter and the Loughborough College of Librarianship.

He contested the seat of Worcester at the 1970 General Election, where he was easily defeated by Peter Walker. From 1971-1982 he was a librarian for Cheshire County Council and later worked for the Co-operative Party. At both the February 1974 General Election and October 1974 General Election he unsuccessfully contested the Cheshire seat of Nantwich, where he was defeated by John Cockcroft.

The Speaker of the House of Commons, Selwyn Lloyd decided to stand down from the Commons in 1976, and Bailey contested the resulting by-election and he was again defeated easily by David Hunt, who was later to enter the Cabinet of John Major. He was not to fight a Parliamentary election again for 24 years.

He was elected as a councillor for Sandwell Borough Council in 1991 and was its Deputy Leader from 1997-2000. At the time of the resignation of Commons Speaker, Betty Boothroyd in 2000, Bailey was the Secretary of the constituency Labour Party and Deputy Leader of the local council and seemed the obvious choice to fight the impending by-election. He was chosen to fight the seat and won fairly comfortably on November 23, 2000, and entered the Commons more than 30 years after his first attempt. He is unusual in that he has contested two Parliamentary by-elections caused by the resignation of two different Speakers of the House of Commons.

Following the 2005 General Election, Bailey became a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and has served successive Secretaries of State, David Blunkett and John Hutton.