Jim Fitzpatrick

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The Right Honourable  Jim Fitzpatrick  MP
Minister of State for Farming and the Environment
Incumbent
Assumed office  8 June 2009
Preceded by	Jane Kennedy
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport
In office 28 June 2007 – 8 June 2009
Preceded by	Unknown
Succeeded by	Chris Mole
Minister for London
In office 2005 – 28 June 2007
Preceded by	Keith Hill
Succeeded by	Tessa Jowell
Member of Parliament for Poplar and Canning Town
Incumbent
Assumed office  1 May 1997
Preceded by	New constituency
Majority	7,129 (18.7%)
Born	4 April 1952 (1952-04-04) (age 57) Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Jane Lowe Sheila[1]
Children	2[1]

James "Jim" Fitzpatrick (born 4 April 1952) is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Poplar and Canning Town since 1997, and is Minister of State for Farming and the Environment at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Early and personal life

Jim Fitzpatrick was born in Glasgow, Scotland and was educated locally at the Holyrood R.C. Secondary School in Crosshill.^[2] From 1970 he was a trainee with Tytrak in Glasgow, before moving to London in 1973 to become a driver with Mintex. In 1974 he became a firefighter with the London Fire Brigade, being awarded the long service medal in 1994, he left the brigade on his election to Westminster.

He is married to Dr Sheila Fitzpatrick and has two children from a previous marriage. He supports West Ham United Football Club.^[3] He is also a vegetarian.^[4]

Political career

He was for a number of years in the 1970s a member of the Socialist Workers Party but left it around 1981. At the time he was noted for his trade union militancy in the Fire Brigades Union.

He was elected as the chair of the Barking Constituency Labour Party for a year in 1989, and was chairman of the Greater London Labour Party for nine years from 1991.

Member of Parliament

He was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for the newly created seat of Poplar and Canning Town in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets at the 1997 General Election with a majority of 18,915 and has remained the MP there since. He made his maiden speech on 17 June 1997.

In 1999 he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Alan Milburn,^[2] until becoming the Secretary of State for Health later in the same year. After the 2001 General Election he became a member of the Tony Blair government as an Assistant Government Whip, becoming a Lord Commissioner to the Treasury (Government Whip) in 2002. He was again promoted within the Whips Office in 2003 when he became the Vice-Chamberlain of the Household.

2005 parliament

Fitzpatrick was re-elected in the 2005 election, and was then appointed a junior minister at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister with the role of Minister for London, a role he took with him on his subsequent move to the Department of Trade and Industry in May 2006. In 2007 he argued against a CWU strike saying it will harm their cause, something which is seen as^[who?] a large turnaround from his previous days in a Trotskyist group.

On 29 June 2007 he moved to become the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport and was replaced as Minister for London by Tessa Jowell. It was announced in 2007 that the leader of Respect, George Galloway, would stand against Fitzpatrick for the new seat of Poplar and Limehouse at the next general election.^[5]

In 2008 during the Christmas period, Jim Fitzpatrick and his wife visited Bangladesh, touring the development projects supported by the Canary Wharf Group. The purpose of the trip was to re-visit the country since 1999, and see the regeneration projects that the group supports. During his visit, he visited the Football Academy in Dhaka, also to Jagannathpur and Sylhet, where many Bangladeshis in the UK originate from including in his constituency.^[6]

Fitzpatrick was promoted to Minister of Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs^[1] in the June 2009 reshuffle.

In August 2009, Fitzpatrick left the wedding of a Muslim couple in his constituency when he was told it would be segregated by gender. Fitzpatrick blamed the Islamic Forum of Europe in an article in a local newspaper. The couple denied this, and said Fitzpatrick had "hijacked [the wedding] for political gain".^[7]

References

External links

• Jim Fitzpatrick official site
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Jim Fitzpatrick MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Jim Fitzpatrick MP
• BBC Newsnight Interview