Alison McGovern | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2019 | |||||||||||||||||
| Member of Parliament for Wirral South | |||||||||||||||||
| Assumed office 6 May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Ben Chapman | ||||||||||||||||
| Majority | 6,105 (14.0%) | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| Member of Southwark Council for Brunswick Park | |||||||||||||||||
| In office 4 May 2006 – 6 May 2010 | |||||||||||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||
| Born | 30 December 1980 Clatterbridge, Merseyside, England | ||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Labour | ||||||||||||||||
| Spouse |
Ashwin Kumar (m. 2008) | ||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | University College London (BA) | ||||||||||||||||
Alison McGovern (born 30 December 1980) is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wirral South since 2010. A member of the Labour Party, she was a member of Southwark Council from 2006 to 2010.
The granddaughter of songwriter and activist Peter McGovern,[1] she was born in Clatterbridge, Merseyside,[1] the daughter of a British Railways telecoms engineer father and a mother who was a nurse.
She was educated at Brookhurst Primary School, and then Wirral Grammar School for Girls, where she was the Head Girl from 1998 to 1999. She received a Batchelor of Arts in Philosophy from University College London.[2]
On graduation, she worked as a researcher at the House of Commons, before handling communications for development projects at Network Rail,[2] then working for the Art Fund and Creativity, Culture and Education.[3]
McGovern was first elected as a councillor for Brunswick Park in the London Borough of Southwark in 2006, later becoming the Deputy Leader of the borough council's 29-member group of Labour councillors.[citation needed]
McGovern was selected as the Labour Party candidate for Wirral South in December 2009, following Ben Chapman's decision to stand down at the next election for family reasons following adverse publicity in The Daily Telegraph over the expenses scandal, and subsequently won the seat in the 2010 general election, defeating the Conservative candidate, Jeff Clarke, by 531 votes.
McGovern made her maiden speech in the House of Commons on 3 June 2010 in a debate on European Affairs.[4] She became former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's parliamentary private secretary in July 2010.[5] On 14 September 2010, she held her first adjournment debate regarding employment prospects for young people in Wirral. In November 2010. She was selected by the PLP to become a member of the International Development Select Committee.[6]
In December 2010, she introduced a Private member's bill before Parliament that would amend the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 to broaden the scope of the general duty of library authorities so as to include a duty to provide related cultural facilities alongside the library service. In March 2011, she visited India as part of an International Development Select Committee delegation.[7]
In the 2013 Labour reshuffle, she was added to the Shadow International Development team.[8] In 2014, she was moved to the shadow Children and Families portfolio.[9]
In May 2015, McGovern was appointed Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury, also known as Shadow City Minister, in Labour's Treasury team.[10] She departed the opposition front bench after Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader in September 2015.[11] In October 2015, McGovern was appointed as Chair of Progress, a political organisation associated with the development of New Labour.[2]
In the 2015 Labour Party leadership election, McGovern endorsed Liz Kendall.[12]
In January 2016, McGovern resigned from Labour's policy review on child poverty and combating inequality, as a protest against Progress being described by shadow Chancellor John McDonnell as having "a hard right agenda". She commented that she had been "backed into a corner". A Labour Party spokesperson stated "She is resigning from something that doesn't exist", as the initiative had not been confirmed or launched yet.[13] McGovern supported Owen Smith in the unsuccessful attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour Party (UK) leadership election.[14]
McGovern served as chair of the Advisory Committee on Works of Art from July 2016 until April 2020, when she rejoined the opposition front bench. In September 2016, she was elected co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group Friends of Syria.[15]
In the 2016 Labour Party leadership election, McGovern backed Owen Smith.[16]
In the 2020 Labour Party leadership election, McGovern supported Jess Phillips.[12]
The 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies means her constituency will be dissolved as the Wirral will move from 4 MPs to 3.[17] She challenged Mick Whitley in Birkenhead for the Labour selection for the next general election and was successful on 16 June 2023.[18]
On 16 November 2023, a motion was tabled in Parliament calling for a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war. McGovern is listed as "did not vote/abstained".[19]
McGovern is seen to be within the political right of the Labour Party and chairs Progressive Britain (formerly Progress), a group founded to support Tony Blair.[12]
In 2008 McGovern married economist Ashwin Kumar, formerly a senior civil servant in the Department for Work and Pensions and Passenger Director at Passenger Focus.[1][20] The couple have a daughter, born in 2011.[21]
