Hilary Benn, Date of Birth, Place of Birth
TweetHilary Benn
British politician
Date of Birth: 26-Nov-1953
Place of Birth: Hammersmith, England, United Kingdom
Profession: politician
Nationality: United Kingdom
Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius 
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About Hilary Benn
- Hilary James Wedgwood Benn (born 26 November 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds Central since a by-election in 1999.
- He served in the Cabinet from 2003 to 2010, under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and from 2010 to 2016, he has served in various Labour Party Shadow Cabinet positions, most recently as Shadow Foreign Secretary from May 2015 until June 2016.
- In October 2016, he was elected as the inaugural Chairman of the new Exiting the European Union Select Committee. Born in Hammersmith, he is the second son of veteran Labour MP Tony Benn and educationalist Caroline Benn.
- He studied Russian and East European Studies at the University of Sussex and went on to work as a policy researcher for two trade unions, ASTMS and MSF.
- After joining the Labour Party, Benn was elected as a councillor on Ealing Borough Council on which he served for several years, rising to the rank of Deputy Leader of the Council. He was also the unsuccessful Labour parliamentary candidate for the Ealing North constituency, running for election in both the 1983 and 1987 general elections.
- After the 1997 general election, Benn was appointed as a special adviser to David Blunkett before winning a by-election in Leeds Central in 1999. Benn became a junior minister in the Department for International Development in 2001, being re-shuffled to the Home Office in 2002, and returning to International Development in 2003.
- Later in 2003, he was appointed as the Secretary of State for International Development, where he was responsible for the reconstruction efforts in Iraq, the UK's response to various natural disasters around the world, and also seeking a solution to the War in Darfur, among other responsibilities.
- In 2007, Benn was a candidate for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
- In 2007, Benn was appointed as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, serving until 2010.
- One of his main agendas in this role was combatting bovine tuberculosis. Since Labour's defeat at the 2010 general election, Benn has served on the front bench in four separate shadow cabinets, those of Harriet Harman, Ed Miliband, Harman's second shadow cabinet, and Jeremy Corbyn.
- Immediately following the Labour Party leadership election in 2010, he continued as Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but was appointed as Shadow Leader of the House of Commons later in the year, serving until a reshuffle in 2011.
- He was then appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, serving until the 2015 general election.
- After Douglas Alexander failed to win re-election, Benn was appointed as Shadow Foreign Secretary, maintaining this role after Corbyn's election as leader.
- He was dismissed from this position by Corbyn on 26 June 2016, precipitating a number of shadow cabinet resignations.
- Benn was later elected Chairman of the influential Exiting the European Union Select Committee.
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