Kevin Barron

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Kevin John Barron (October 29, 1946) is a British politician. He is the Labour Party member of Parliament for Rother Valley.

Kevin Barron was born at Hazlewood Castle in Tadcaster he was educated at the Maltby Hall Secondary Modern School; the University of Sheffield, and at Ruskin College, Oxford.

On leaving school in 1962, Barron became a coal miner at the local Maltby Colliery. He spent the next 23 years working in the coal industry. In 1982 he became president of the Rotherham Trades Union Congress. He was a member of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), who later expelled him for disloyalty. Once, on picketing duty outside Maltby colliery he was struck on the head by a police baton. He was a political ally of Arthur Scargill.

Peter Hardy, the Labour MP for Rother Valley decided to switch consistuencies in 1983 and chose to fight the equally safe neighbouring new seat of Wentworth. With NUM backing Kevin Barron secured the nomination and was duly elected as the Labour MP for Rother Valley at the 1983 General Election.

In 1985 Kevin Barron was made a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition Neil Kinnock, a position he held until the 1987 General Election. Kinnock gave Barron a frontbench job in 1988 as an opposition spokesman on Energy but was dropped following the 1992 General Election. Barron's aspirations were again realised by the new leader John Smith returned him to the front bench as a spokesman on Employment. After Smith's death, Tony Blair moved Barron to speak on Health matters.

Kevin Barron was a leading figure in the campaign to rewrite Clause IV under the new leadership of Tony Blair and it came as a surprise that there was no job in government for him after the victorious 1997 General Election. He took solace with eight years on the senior Intelligence and Security Select Committee. He has been a Member of the General Medical Council since 1999, and was made a Privy Councillor in 2001. He was made Chairman of the influential Health Select Committee after the 2005 General Election.

Kevin Barron is anti smoking. He is married to Carol McGrath and they have a son and two daughters.


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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Peter Hardy		 Member of Parliament for Rother Valley
1983 – present		 Incumbent
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