Barry Gardiner
Barry Strachan Gardiner is born the 10th of March 1957 in Glasgow, Scotland. He is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Brent North since 1997. He served as a junior minister in the Northern Ireland Office, the Department for Productivity, Energy and Industry, the Department of Trade and Industry and finally in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Education[edit]
He was educated at the High School of Glasgow, Haileybury College and the University of St Andrews where he received an MA. He then served for two years as full-time Scottish Regional Secretary of the Student Christian Movement. In 1983, he was awarded a Kennedy Memorial Trust scholarship to study Philosophy at Harvard University[2] under John Rawls, returning to research at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge for three years from 1984.
Political Career[edit]
Gardiner was selected to contest the London seat of Brent North at the 1997 General Election. In the House of Commons he served on four select committees, the Procedure Committee and the Select Committee on Broadcasting, the Public Accounts Committee and the Joint Committee on Consolidation of Bills. He was Chair of the PLP Departmental Committee for Culture, Media and Sport and Vice-chair of the PLP Departmental Committee for the Treasury .He became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State at the Home Office, Beverley Hughes in 2002. In 2004 he was appointed the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office, moving to the same position at the Department of Trade and Industry following the 2005 General Election. He moved to DEFRA at the May 2006 reshuffle and left the Government in June 2007.
