Ed Balls

Biography

Ed Balls is an MP and key advisor to Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, whose department will play a central role in making decisions on any new nuclear power stations. Balls was elected as Labour MP for the Normanton constituency on 5 May 2005. [1]

He is married to Housing and Planning Minister Yvette Cooper.

Balls himself has said that nuclear “is not a solution� to energy security problems. He strongly backs the coal industry because he represents “a constituency with a strong mining tradition and with miners still working in Selby, Kellingley and elsewhere.� He adds: “I come from an important coal-producing region: I think that a quarter of UK coal is produced in Yorkshire.� [2]

Links to the nuclear industry

Balls' father-in-law is Tony Cooper, a member of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and former chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association.