Mike O'Brien (British politician)

The Right Honourable Mike O'Brien QC
Minister of State for Health Services
In office 8 June 2009 – 11 May 2010
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Ben Bradshaw
Succeeded by	Simon Burns
Minister of State for Energy
In office 5 October 2008 – 8 June 2009
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Office Created
Succeeded by	Joan Ruddock
Minister of State for Pensions
In office 27 June 2007 – 5 October 2008
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	James Purnell
Succeeded by	Rosie Winterton
Solicitor General for England and Wales
In office 11 May 2005 – 27 June 2007
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Harriet Harman
Succeeded by	Vera Baird
Minister of State for Trade and Industry
In office 10 September 2004 – 11 May 2005
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Nigel Griffiths
Succeeded by	Ian McCartney
Minister of State for Trade
In office 13 June 2003 – 10 September 2004
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Elizabeth Symons
Succeeded by	Douglas Alexander
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs
In office 29 May 2002 – 13 June 2003
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Ben Bradshaw
Succeeded by	Chris Mullin
Minister of State for Immigration
In office 2 May 1997 – 8 June 2001
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Emily Blatch
Succeeded by	Barbara Roche
Member of Parliament for North Warwickshire
In office 9 April 1992 – 12 April 2010
Preceded by	Francis Maude
Succeeded by	Daniel Byles
Majority	7,553 (16.1%)
Personal details
Born	(1954-06-19) 19 June 1954 Worcester, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Alison Joy Munro
Alma mater	North Staffordshire Polytechnic
Website	Official site

Michael O'Brien QC (born 19 June 1954) is a British lawyer and former Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Warwickshire from 1992 to 2010, serving in a number of cabinet posts.^[1] In the May 2010 general election, he lost his North Warwickshire constituency to Dan Byles, the Conservative Party candidate by 54 votes. O'Brien was re-selected as Labour's candidate in North Warwickshire for the 2015 general election in June 2013,^[2] but was defeated again by the new Conservative Party candidate Craig Tracey.

Early life

O'Brien attended a Roman Catholic primary school, St George's and later attended Blessed Edward Oldcorne School (Worcester). He studied for a BA in History and Politics at North Staffordshire Polytechnic, then gained a PGCE. From 1977–80, he was a trainee solicitor, then trained as a teacher from 1980–1. He lectured in Business Law at Colchester College of Further and Higher Education from 1981–87. From 1987–92, he practised as a solicitor specialising in criminal law including handling cases of murder and City fraud and acted for a major defendant in the Knightsbridge Security Deposit robbery.^[3] He became a Queen's Counsel in 2007.^[4]

Parliamentary career

O'Brien contested Ruislip Northwood in 1983, and North Warwickshire in 1987. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for the West Midlands constituency of North Warwickshire at the 1992 general election, defeating the Conservative incumbent Francis Maude, and lost his seat to the Conservative candidate at the 2010 general election. He served on the Home Affairs Select Committee from November 1992 to May 1993 focusing on reports on Youth Justice and the defence of provocation in murder cases involving a spouse. In May 1993 he became the first Labour Parliamentary Adviser to the Police Federation in 20 years and subsequently transferred to the Treasury Select Committee where he worked on a report into the collapse of Barings Bank and other reports on City Fraud and Independence of the Bank of England.

Minister of State for Immigration

He served as Minister of State for Immigration in the Home Office from 1997–2001.^[1] During his time as Minister of State for Immigration net migration to the UK rose significantly. In 1997, annual net immigration stood at 56,000 but by 2001 net immigration had risen to 191,500.^[5] In March 1998, it was announced that UK immigration officers were instructed to stop checking the passports of passengers embarking at British ports and airports. Mike O'Brien described the procedure of checking passports as "routine and unproductive" but the Immigration Service Union criticised the move, saying the changes made it harder to ensure that illegal immigrants ordered out of the country actually left.^[6] In May 1998 Mike O'Brien announced that inhabitants of the island of Montserrat, which had been hit by volcanic eruptions, were able to stay in Britain indefinitely.^[7] O'Brien's time as Minister of State for Immigration was marred in the late 1990s by administrative problems including delays in officials giving clearance to NHS doctors^[8] and backlogs in processing applications for passports. The delays in issuing passports made national headlines^[9] and resulted in the UK Passport Agency being stripped of its Charter Mark for customer service.^[10] Mike O'Brien also developed procedures to deal with suspected terrorists at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. He also took through major reforms in the Immigration and Asylum Act, including introducing fines for hauliers found to have illegal migrants in their lorry, whether or not the haulier knew of their presence.

Hinduja affair

Whilst serving as Minister of State for Immigration, O'Brien had to deal with the 2001 Hinduja affair. His testimony that Peter Mandelson had telephoned him on behalf of S P Hinduja, who was at the time seeking British citizenship, led to Mandelson's resignation.^[11] An independent enquiry by Sir Anthony Hammond came to the conclusion that neither Mandelson nor anyone else had acted improperly.

Minister for Constitutional Affairs

From May 1999 he became the Minister for Constitutional Affairs, taking through the Commons the Freedom of Information Act, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, two Representation of the People Acts and introducing a White Paper on Alcohol Licensing Reform. As Minister responsible for Race Relations he developed the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 which placed obligations on all public bodies to promote good race relations. He also worked to develop closer links between the Government and the Muslim community, something he continued to work on over the next decade, particularly after 9/11.

Minister for the Middle East

At the Foreign Office from 2002 to 2003 he was Minister for the Middle East. He went to Libya to hold the first meeting of a British Minister with Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi which opened the way to better relations between Gadaffi's Libya and the West and helped lead to cooperation on ending controversial Libyan weapons research programmes.

In the run up to the 2003 Iraq War, he addressed parliament saying "The body of evidence that Saddam Hussein possesses a fearsome range of weapons of mass destruction is substantial.. Let us be clear: Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and he is a threat to his people, his neighbours and ultimately the middle east and the wider world.^[12] Before adding "If we have to undertake military action and American and British troops are committed and have to go into Baghdad, I suspect that the Iraqi people will be the first to cheer."^[13]

He was the first Western Minister into Baghdad after the Iraq War and worked on relationships with Iran, Syria and Afghanistan during this period.

Minister of State for Trade and Industry

He was then appointed Minister of State for Trade and Industry, dealing with talks with the WTO as part of the Doha Round and helping to write the 2004 Trade White Paper.

Minister of State for E-commerce, Energy & Competitiveness

Following a reshuffle, he became Minister of State for E-commerce, Energy & Competitiveness at the Department of Trade and Industry on 9 September 2004.

Solicitor General for England and Wales

After the 2005 general election he replaced Harriet Harman as Solicitor General for England and Wales.

On 29 June 2007 he was appointed as Minister of State for Pension Reform in the Department for Work and Pensions under Secretary of State Peter Hain. Referring to the long running Pensions Action Group campaign and speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Moneybox programme on the day compensation was announced, pensions expert Ros Altmann, credited Peter Hain and O'Brien with "having been very different to deal with than their predecessors and ... willing and eager to engage and find a way to sort this out."^[14] The Pensions Act 2008 completed its major stages whilst O' Brien was minister and received Royal Assent in November 2008.^[15]

Minister of State for Energy

On 5 October 2008, he became Minister of State for Energy in order to help create the new Department of Energy and Climate Change. He took through Parliament two Energy Acts making reforms to take account of the Climate Change debate and to enable the building of new nuclear power stations.

Minister of State for Health

In June 2009 he became the Minister of State for Health. As well as taking through administrative reforms of the NHS in two Acts of Parliament, he negotiated a settlement of compensation for the victims of Thalidomide and introduced priority NHS treatment of former service personnel injured in the line of duty.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mike O'Brien (UK politician).

• Official site
• Twitter stream
• Department for Work and Pensions – Official Biography
• Guardian Unlimited Politics – Ask Aristotle: Michael O'Brien MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com – Mike O'Brien MP
• BBC Politics page
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Mike O'Brien

News items

• Pension reform in July 2007
• Wave Hub plan in Cornwall in November 2004
• UK embracing E-commerce in November 2004
• Meeting Colonel Gaddafi in August 2002
• 24 hour drinking in May 2001
• Accusing Home Office of racism in April 2000
• Accusing the Fire Service of racism in September 1999