About Shaun Woodward

I am proud to serve as Labour Member of Parliament for St Helens South, a seat I have held since 2001.

I was born in Bristol, the youngest of three children in 1958. I went on to graduate from Cambridge University; the first member of my family to go to university.

Having worked in television and teaching I entered Westminster as a Tory M.P. for Witney in Oxfordshire in 1997. I lasted two years in the Tory Party at Westminster. It was bad from the beginning; the problem was it just got worse until eventually it became untenable.

The time had come to address the reality that the values in which I believed were to be realised within the Labour Party. Whatever the cost to myself and my career, I knew I would have to quit the Tory Party. On Saturday December 18th 1999 I announced my decision to apply to take the Labour whip.

I was selected by the local Labour Party to fight St Helens South in May 2001. On 7 June 2001 I was elected to be one of the town's two M.P.s alongside Dave Watts, who has represented St Helens North since 1997.

In May 2005 I joined the Government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Northern Ireland. In 2006 I was appointed a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

In June 2007 I was appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

This site is an opportunity for you to read more about my work, and to have your say on the issues affecting families in St Helens South and across Britain.

Sincerely yours,
Shaun Woodward