Yvette Cooper

This article is part of the Nuclear Spin project of Spinwatch.

Yvette Cooper, MP

Yvette Cooper is a British politician who has been the Labour MP for Pontefract and Castleford since 1997. She currently holds the role of Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities.

Political career

In the last Labour government until 2010 she held various ministerial positions, including Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (June 2009-2010), Chief Secretary to the Treasury (January 2008-June 2009), Minister for Housing (June 2007- January 2008) and Chief Secretary to the Treasury (2008-10).

Cooper read PPE at Balliol College, Oxford, went on to Harvard University as a Kennedy scholar and the London School of Economics where she took a masters degree in economics. She worked as economic researcher for late John Smith, Policy Advisor to Bill Clinton Presidential Campaign, Policy Adviser to Labour Treasury Team, and was an economics columnist with The Independent newspaper.

Cooper is a member of the TGWU and GMB unions. She is married to Ed Balls, an MP and former key advisor to then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. They have three children.

• January 2008-2010 | Chief Secretary to the Treasury (www.hm-treasury.gov.uk)
• June 2007 | Minister for Housing, attending Cabinet
• 2005 | Minister of State (Minister for Housing and Planning), Department for Communities and Local Government (formerly the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister).
• June 2003 | appointed Parliamentary Secretary in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
• May 29 2002 | appointed Parliamentary Secretary at the Lord Chancellor's Department.
• October 1999 | appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health.
• May 1997 | elected Labour Member of Parliament for Pontefract and Castleford.

Previously member of Education and Employment Select Committee; member of Employment Sub-Committee; member, Intelligence and Security Committee; All-party Coalfield Communities Group.

As Minister responsible for Planning, she played a crucial role in determining whether new nuclear power stations are built.

Nuclear cronyism

In May 2007, just days before the Government announced its latest White Paper on Energy, the thisislondon newspaper, ran the headline "Minister is Blasted Over 'Nuclear Cronyism'-

The article went on to say:

Planning Minister Yvette Cooper is at the centre of a 'cronyism' row after it was revealed that her father is a champion of the nuclear industry. Miss Cooper is set to announce controversial plans to help energy firms brush aside objections to new nuclear power stations.

Miss Cooper's father, Tony Cooper, was chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association, which lobbies Ministers on the benefits of atomic power.

Mr Cooper, 63, an ex-union boss, is now director of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and has become one of the most outspoken champions of the industry's 'green' credentials."