Chris Bryant

Christopher John Bryant (born 11 January 1962) is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Rhondda since 2001. Bryant is currently the Minister of State for Europe and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Background

Chris Bryant was born in Cardiff to a Scottish mother and a Welsh father. He was educated at Cheltenham College, and Mansfield College, Oxford where he received a B.A. degree in English in 1983 and later received the MA (Oxon). He then trained for the priesthood in the Church of England at Ripon College, Cuddesdon in Oxfordshire, where he obtained a further degree in theology. Although initially a member of the Conservative Party, and an elected office-holder in the Oxford University Conservative Association, OUCA, he joined the Labour Party in 1986 after leaving Oxford. From 1986 he served as a Curate at the Church of All Saints, High Wycombe and from 1989, as a Youth Chaplain in Peterborough.

Labour Party

In 1991 Bryant made a radical career move and began work as agent to Holborn and St Pancras Constituency Labour Party, where he helped Frank Dobson hold his seat in the 1992 general election. From 1993 he was Local Government officer for the Labour Party; he lived in Hackney and was elected to Hackney Borough Council in 1993, serving until 1998. Also in 1993, he became the Chairman of the Christian Socialist Movement.^{[citation needed]} He is also a member of the Labour Friends of Israel lobby group. From 1994 to 1996 he was London manager of the charity Common Purpose.^[1]

In 1996 he became a full time author, writing biographies of Stafford Cripps and Glenda Jackson. He was Labour candidate for Wycombe in the 1997 general election, and Head of European Affairs for the BBC from 1998.^[1]

Member of Parliament for Rhondda

His selection for the rock-solid Labour seat of Rhondda in South Wales in 2000 surprised many people given Bryant's background in the Church of England and former membership of the Conservative Party. He retained the seat comfortably with a 16,047 majority, one of the biggest in the country, although there was a swing to Plaid Cymru compared with the 1997 general election.

Bryant is a Christian Socialist, a member of the Co-operative Party (an organisation in electoral agreement to the Labour Party of which he is also a member), the Fabian Society, Amnesty International and the Trade Union Amicus. He is a strong supporter of British membership of the European Union, opposed to legalisation of drugs, strongly against fox hunting and in favour of an elected House of Lords.

Between the 2005 General Election and June 2006, he was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Charlie Falconer.

On 5 September 2006 he and Siôn Simon co-ordinated a letter which was signed by 15 Labour backbenchers calling for Tony Blair's immediate resignation. [1][2][3]

Chris Bryant is a supporter of Burberry Workers who in September 2006 Burberry announced the closure in March 2007 of their factory in Treorchy, Wales, moving 310 jobs to China.

In 2008 he launched a campaign highlighting teenage pregnancy rates and calling for improved Sex and Relationship Education in schools.

In 2008 he drew up plans which would end the exclusion of Catholics from the throne, and end the doctrine of primogeniture within the Monarchy of the United Kingdom.^[2]

In Gordon Brown's Autumn 2008 reshuffle, Bryant was promoted from his role as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Harriet Harman to the Ministerial position of Deputy Leader of the House of Commons otherwise known as Parliamentary Secretary to the House of Commons. This was followed by another move in the June 2009 reshuffle, when he moved to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. On 13 October 2009, he was also appointed Minister of State for Europe^[3].

Expenses Claims Scandal

Chris Bryant claimed over £92,000 in expenses over the five years leading up to the 2009 scandal over MPs' expenses. During that time he flipped his second-home expenses twice, claimed mortgage interest expenses that started at £7,800 per year before rising (after flipping) to £12,000 per year. He also claimed £6,400 in stamp duty and other fees on his most recent purchase, and £6,000 per year in service charges. A claim that he made for £58,493.26, almost three times the annual maximum, in 2004, was disallowed.^[4]

Controversy over private life

Bryant is openly gay, but he was ridiculed by the press in 2003 when he was discovered to have solicited anonymous sex and posed wearing only underpants on a gay dating site, Gaydar, whilst an MP.^[5][6][7]

On 25 September 2006 The Guardian newspaper ran four spoof diary articles called "Chris Bryant's Manchester Diary", which did not make it clear that they were spoofs; Bryant called in his solicitors to get an apology,^[8] but not before other media outlets had commented under the impression that they were genuine.^[9]

Publications

• Glenda Jackson: The Biography by Chris Bryant, 1999, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-00-255911-0
• Stafford Cripps: The First Modern Chancellor by Chris Bryant, 1997, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, ISBN 0-340-67892-5
• Possible Dreams: Personal History of the British Christian Socialists by Chris Bryant, 1996, Hodder & Stoughton Religious, ISBN 0-340-64201-7

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Who's Who. A & C Black. January 2007. 
2. ^ Wintour, Patrick (2008-09-25). "End of the Anglican crown - 300 year bar to be lifted". The Guardian (Guardian Newspapers): pp. 1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/25/anglicanism.catholicism1. Retrieved 2008-09-25. 
3. ^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6871302.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2015164
4. ^ Chris Bryant changed second home twice to claim £20,000: MPs' expenses Telegraph.co.uk
5. ^ BBC NEWS | Wales | MP 'sorry' over underpants photo
6. ^ MP faces being outed from Rhondda - WalesOnline
7. ^ No, I'm the only gay in the valleys | The Sun |News|Columnists|Littlejohn
8. ^ Apology - Chris Bryant MP | From the Guardian | guardian.co.uk
9. ^ Iain Dale's Diary

External links

• Chris Bryant MP - official electoral site
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Chris Bryant MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Chris Bryant MP
• www.teenagemums.org.uk - Website of Chris Bryant's sex education campaign.

Offices held