Frank Field

Frank Field is no longer a Member of Parliament.  This page has not been updated since 2015.

Biography:

Frank Field was re-elected MP for Birkenhead on May 7th 2015 with 26468 votes, taking 67.6% of the vote.

Born in London, he was educated at St Clement Danes Holborn Estate Boys Grammar School before studying economics at the University of Hull. In his youth, he was a member of the Conservative Party, but left due to his opposition to South Africa’s apartheid system. He was elected as a councillor in the London Borough of Hounslow for four years from 1964 and in the same year became a further education teacher in Southwark and Hammersmith until he became the Director of the Child Poverty Action Group 1969-79, and of the Low Pay Unit 1974-1980.

Field unsuccessfully contested Buckinghamshire South at the 1966 General Election where he was defeated soundly by the sitting Conservative veteran MP Ronald Bell. He was selected to contest the safe seat at Birkenhead at the 1979 General Election on the retirement of the sitting Labour MP Edmund Dell. Field held the seat safely with a majority of 5,909 and has remained the constituency MP since then.

In Parliament Field was made a member of the Opposition frontbench by Michael Foot as a spokesman on education in 1980 but was dropped a year later. Following the appointment of Neil Kinnock as the Leader of the Opposition in 1983 he was appointed as a spokesman on health and social security for a year. He was appointed the chairman of the social services select committee in 1987, becoming the chairman of the new social security select committee in 1990, a position he held until the 1997 election.

Following the 1997 election, with Labour in power, Field joined the government of Tony Blair as the Minister of Welfare Reform at the Department of Social Security with the rank of Minister of State. After Labour’s defeat in the 2010 election, he was given the role of “poverty czar” in David Cameron’s coalition government. On 18th June 2015 he became chairman of the Work and Pension Select Committeee.

Constituency: Birkenhead

Constituency Address: No constituency office

Constituency Tel: 0800 028 0293

Date of Birth: 16 July 1942

Email: fieldf@parliament.uk

Party: Labour

Personal Website: http://www.frankfield.co.uk/

Westminster Address: House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

Westminster Tel: 020 7219 5193

Twitter: twitter.com/frankfieldmp

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Frank-Field/104174659619621?fref=ts