Kim Howells

The Right Honourable  Kim Howells  MP
Minister for Education
In office 19 July 2004 – 6 October 2008
Prime Minister	Tony Blair Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Beverly Hughes
Succeeded by	Jim Knight
Minister for Culture
In office 20 April 1999 – 19 July 2004
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Chris Smith
Succeeded by	Tessa Jowell
Minister for Transport
In office 2 May 1997 – 20 April 1999
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	George Young
Succeeded by	Gus Macdonald
Member of the United Kingdom Parliament for Pontypridd
Incumbent
Assumed office  23 February 1989
Preceded by	Brynmor John
Majority	13,191 (33.3%)
Born	27 November 1946 (1946-11-27) (age 63) Merthyr Tydfil, Wales
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Eirlys Davies
Alma mater	Middlesex University University of Warwick
Occupation	Politician

Kim Howells (born 27 November 1946) is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Pontypridd since 1989, and has held a number of ministerial positions within the Government.

Biography

Howells is the son of the late Glanville Howells, a Communist lorry driver,^[1] and of Joan Glenys Howells. Born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales and raised in Penywaun near Aberdare in the Cynon Valley, he is a former pupil of Mountain Ash Grammar School.

Howells went to Hornsey College of Art,which now is Middlesex University, where he was active in the famous May 1968 student occupation, and was the first protester to breach the Metropolitan Police cordon at the demonstration against the Vietnam War outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square in 1968.^[1]

After completing his undergraduate degree at Middlesex, Howells later obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Warwick in 1979, for a thesis entitled A view from below : tradition, experience and nationalism in the South Wales coalfield, 1937-1957.^[2]

Professional career

On return home to South Wales from college, Howells worked as a researcher and editor for the South Wales Miner, before becoming a South Wales National Union of Mineworkers official and local representative of the Communist Party of Great Britain.^[3] Howells ran the NUM Pontypridd office which co-ordinated the South Wales miners efforts during the UK miners' strike (1984–1985). The most serious incident of the whole national dispute occurred on Howells' patch, when taxi driver David Wilkie was killed when two striking miners dropped a concrete block off a local bridge onto Wilkie's taxi, which was taking a strike-breaking miner to work. On being told of the incident in a telephone call from a reporter of the South Wales Echo, Howells rode his bicycle to the NUM offices, and destroyed the maps and information associated with co-ordinating the strike for fear of a police raid. He later commented that same day that the incident was a result of pressure to get the miners to return to work.

After allegations that he hid evidence associated with the death of Wilkie, and an investigation by South Wales Police, Howells in 2004 commented in a BBC Wales documentary that when he heard that a taxi driver had been killed, he thought "hang on, we've got all those records we've kept over in the NUM offices, there's all those maps on the wall, we're gonna get implicated in this". He then destroyed a large number of papers, because he feared a police raid on the union offices.^[4]

After the miners strike, and the closure of 29 of the 30 NCB pits in South Wales, Howells became a writer and presenter for television and radio, and a college lecturer.

Parliamentary career

Howells entered the House of Commons in a by-election in 1989. He excelled in the Labour Opposition, becoming Opposition Spokesman on Trade and Industry, Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Development and Co-operation. Howells suggested in 1996 that the word "socialism" ought to be "humanely phased out" of Labour party policy documents.^[5] (Clause IV of the party's constitution still states that "The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party").

He held a string of junior ministerial posts in various departments following the 1997 election, until October 2008. These posts included a short spell as Minister of State at the Department for Transport, and from September 2004 he served as a Minister of State at the Department for Education and Skills. In 2003, he said the Labour government was trying to run capitalism more "efficiently" and "humanely".^[5] He is a longstanding member, and former chairman, of Labour Friends of Israel, “a Westminster-based lobby group working within the British Labour Party to promote the State of Israel” (Labour Friends of Israel press briefing, 2003). Dr Howells' public statements on Israel/Palestine have typically echoed the official Israeli government position. In May 2005, Howells was appointed Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with responsibility for the Middle East, Afghanistan and South Asia, counter-narcotics, counter-proliferation, counter-terrorism, UN and UN reform.

On 6 October 2008 Dr Howells left the Government in a wide-ranging reshuffle of ministerial positions. Dr Howells was appointed to take over from Margaret Beckett as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, a Committee of Parliamentarians that oversees the work of Britain's intelligence and security agencies.

In February 2009 Dr Howells was appointed to the Privy Council, making him the Rt. Hon. Kim Howells, an appointment that coincided with the 20th anniversary of his election to Parliament.

In March 2009 it was revealed that Dr Howells made one of the lowest claims on expenses of Welsh MPs, being 5th from bottom.^[6]

On 18 December 2009, Howells announced that he will stand down at the 2010 general election.^[7]

Parliamentary Challenges

In February 2006 he was the subject of a complaint from Paul Flynn MP after he mocked Mr Flynn's attitude towards the UK's Afghan Drug policy as being equivalent to:

On 22 November 2006 it was announced that on a recent visit to Iraq his helicopter was involved in an incident as it left the city of Basra with witnesses claiming shots were fired at the aircraft.

Personality

Howells is known to be an outspoken individual, though whether this is a reflection of his sense of humour or known characteristic of being a free thinker is unclear. In 2002 as a junior Minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, he criticised the Turner Prize by writing a note that read:

Throughout his Parliamentary career he has been unafraid to speak his mind and has often sparked strong criticism from those he has criticised or offended. During a House of Commons debate on licensing laws he said that the idea of "listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell". In a Today programme interview, while visiting Iraq on 11 March 2006 as Foreign Office minister, he said:

On 22 July 2006 Howell criticised Israel's bombardment of Lebanon while on a visit to Beirut, breaking with the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary's less critical line, saying:

He once described the royal family as "a bit bonkers".^[11]

Personal life

Howells married Eirlys Davies in 1983 and has two sons and one daughter. Captain of CCAT Rugby XV 1973-74; a tough wing-forward.

References

External links

• Wales Labour Party - Kim Howells official profile (archived copy)
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Kim Howells MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Kim Howells MP
• The Public Whip - Kim Howells voting record
• Flickr Album - Photographs
• BBC News report of Turner Prize comments 31 October, 2002
• Report on his comments about the Monarchy and the Somerset Folk Singers. Also details an exchange with Paul Flynn on drugs policy in which Dr Howells became abusive.
• Minister admits Iraq is 'a mess', BBC, 11 March 2006 (audio)

Offices Held