Alan Milburn

Alan Milburn (born 27 January 1958) is a British politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Darlington from 1992 to 2010.

He went on to Lancaster University, where he lived in Morecambe and Galgate, graduating in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with Upper Second Class Honours in History.

After leaving university, he returned to Newcastle where, with Martin Spence, he operated a small radical bookshop in the Westgate Road, called Days of Hope (the shop was given the Spoonerised nickname Haze of Dope).

He studied for a PhD at Newcastle University, but did not complete his thesis.

Milburn was Co-ordinator of the Trade Union Studies Information Unit (TUSIU) from the mid-1980s onwards.

In 1981 he married future Labour MEP Mo O'Toole; the couple split up in the late 1980s.

From 1988, Milburn co-ordinated a campaign to defend shipbuilding in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, and was elected Chairman of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Central Constituency Labour Party.

In 1990 he became a Business Development Officer for North Tyneside Borough Council and was elected as President of the North East Region of the Manufacturing Science and Finance trade union.

He duly won the seat of Darlington in the 1992 general election.

In Parliament, Milburn allied himself with the Blairite modernisers in the Labour Party, close to Tony Blair, MP for the next-door constituency of Sedgefield.

The political editor of the New Statesman wrote that "Alan Milburn is regarded by most in Labour as the epitome of Blairite centrism and moderation."

In 1997 he was appointed Minister of State at the Department of Health, an important post in which he had responsibility for driving through Private Finance Initiative deals on hospitals.

A member of the Labour Party, he served for five years in the Cabinet, first as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1998 to 1999, and subsequently as Secretary of State for Health until 2003, when he resigned.

In the reshuffle caused by Peter Mandelson's resignation on 23 December 1998, Milburn was promoted to the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

He became Secretary of State for Health in October 1999, with responsibility for continuing the reduction in waiting times and delivering modernisation in the National Health Service (NHS).

In 2002 Milburn introduced NHS foundation trusts, originally envisaged as a new form of not-for-profit provider and "described at the time as a sort of halfway house between the public and private sectors".

Milburn later described his reforms as "getting the private sector into the NHS to work alongside the public sector. We gave more choice to patients. We paid more for the hospitals that were doing more rather than paying everyone the same."

Milburn was thought to be a candidate for promotion within the Government, but on the day of a reshuffle (12 June 2003) he announced his resignation from government.

He cited the difficulties combining family life in North-East England with a demanding job in London as his reason for quitting.

While on the backbenches he continued to be a strong supporter of Tony Blair's policies, especially his continued policy of increased private involvement in public service provision.

Following his resignation as Secretary of State for Health, Milburn took a post for £30,000 a year as an adviser to Bridgepoint Capital, a venture capital firm heavily involved in financing private health-care firms moving into the NHS, including Alliance Medical, Match Group, Medica and the Robinia Care Group.

He returned to government in September 2004, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

He briefly rejoined the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in order to manage Labour's 2005 re-election campaign.

He was brought back to lead the Labour Party's campaign in the 2005 general election, but the unsuccessful start to the campaign led to Milburn taking a back seat, with Gordon Brown returning to take a very prominent role.

On election night in 2005, he announced he would be leaving the Cabinet for a second time, although rumours persisted that he would challenge Gordon Brown for the succession.

On 8 September 2006, after Tony Blair had announced his intention to step down within a year, Charles Clarke suggested Milburn as leader in place of Brown.

On 27 June 2007, Brown was unopposed.

On 28 February 2007, he and Clarke launched The 2020 Vision, a website intended to promote policy debate in the Labour Party.

He was the honorary president of the political organisation Progress, which was founded by Derek Draper.

In 2007, Milburn worked as an advisor to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and again in 2010 acted as an advisor to the election campaign of Julia Gillard.

In 2007, Milburn became a paid advisor to PepsiCo and sat on its nutritional advisory board.

By the time he stood down from Parliament, Milburn had an income at least £115,000 a year from five companies.

Between January and July 2009, Milburn chaired a governmental commission on social mobility, the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions.

The Panel reported in July 2009 with recommendations to improve social mobility by acting at every life stage – including through schools, universities, internship practices and recruitment processes.

In June 2009, he told his local party he would not be standing at the 2010 general election, saying: "Standing down as an MP will give me the chance to balance my work and my family life with the time to pursue challenges other than politics."

He did not seek re-election in the 2010 election.

Milburn was chair of the Social Mobility Commission from 2012 to 2017.

Since 2015, he has been Chancellor of Lancaster University.

Milburn was born in Whitehaven, and brought up in the village of Tow Law in County Durham and in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

He was educated at John Marley School in Newcastle and, after his mother married, Stokesley Comprehensive School in North Yorkshire.