Ben Chapman (politician)

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For other persons named Ben Chapman, see Ben Chapman (disambiguation).

Ben Chapman outside South Wirral High School

James Keith Chapman, known as Ben Chapman, (born July 8, 1940) is a British politician and former civil servant. He is the Labour Member of Parliament for Wirral South.

Ben Chapman was born in Kirkby Stephen, the son of a farm labourer, he was educated at the Appleby Grammar School. He joined the British Civil Service in 1958, initially in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, moving to the Ministry of Aviation in 1962 where he remained until he joined the Board of Trade in 1970. In 1974 he became the First Secretary at the British High Commission in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and then in 1978 he was posted to Accra, Ghana. He became the Assistant Secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry in 1981, before he was posted as the Commercial Counsellor at the British Embassy in Beijing, China. He was appointed a director at the Department of Trade and Industry in 1991 before he left the civil service in 1995 after 37 years. He then went into business on the Wirral.

He joined the Labour Party in 1996 and within nine months he was a member of Parliament, when he won the Wirral South by-election on February 27, 1997 on a 17% swing with a majority of 7,888 and he is has remained the MP there since. The by-election was caused by the death of the Conservative MP Barry Porter on November 3, 1996. Ben Chapman, the only Labour MP to have represented Wirral South, made his maiden speech on March 12, 1997.[1] Just 63 days after his election he had to return to his constituents and ask for a new mandate at the 1997 general election, which they duly gave him.

After the election of the Labour government in 1997, Ben Chapman became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Richard Caborn who was the Minister of State at the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, he then returned in the same position with Caborn to his old stomping ground at the Department of Trade and Industry in 1999. Following the 2001 General Election Caborn was made the Minister of Sport at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and took Chapman with him. Chapman ceased to be Caborn's PPS after the 2005 General Election and he now sits on select committees.

He has been married to Maureen Ann Byrne since 1999 and they live in Heswall, and he has three daughters from a previous marriage. An opera lover, he was a Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force Reserve 1959-1961.