Hugh Bayley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hugh Bayley (January 9, 1952) British politician. He is the Labour member of Parliament for The City of York.

Bayley was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire and was educated at Haileybury, the University of Bristol, where he obtained a politics degree; and the University of York where he was awarded a degree in Southern African Studies. After his studies in 1975 he became a District Officer and later a National Officer with NALGO.

He was elected as a councillor in the London Borough of Camden in 1980. He became the General Secretary of the International Broadcasting Trust in 1982. Bayley stepped down as a councillor and moved to York to take up a post as Research Officer in Health Economics at the University of York in 1986.

Hugh Bayley was nominated as the Labour candidate for York at the 1987 General Election but was defeated by just 147 votes by the Conservative Conal Gregory. After the election, Hugh Bayley became a Health Economics Research Fellow at the University of York, and became a member of the local health authority.

Conal Gregory and Hugh Bayley again fought it out at the 1992 General Election in York and this time Bayley won by a comfortable margin. After his election he made his maiden speech on May 7, 1992 and joined the Health Select Committee. The name of the York constituency and its boundaries were changed slightly and Bayley won a majority of over 20,000 at the 1997 General Election.

After the election, Bayley became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Health Frank Dobson who lived near York, and was promoted to Tony Blair's government in 1998 as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Social Security. He was dropped from government after the 2001 General Election. He has since served on the International Development Select Committee.

A loyal backbencher, he resigned from the RMT union in 2002 after it said it would only fund MPs that agreed with its policies. He was active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement in his student days and is a lover of jazz. He is married to Fenella Jeffers and they have a son and a daughter.