Maria Eagle

Maria Eagle (born 17 February 1961) is a British politician who served in the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

She later served in the Shadow cabinets of Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn.

She was educated at St Peter's Church of England School in Formby, Merseyside and Formby High School before attending Pembroke College, Oxford, where she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, politics and economics in 1983.

Eagle worked in the voluntary sector from 1983 to 1990, and then went to the College of Law, London, where she took her law finals in 1990, before she joined Brian Thompson & Partners in Liverpool as an articled clerk in 1990.

After joining the Labour Party, Eagle was elected the secretary of the Crosby Constituency Labour Party (CLP) for two years in 1983, and was also elected as the campaigns organiser with that CLP for three years in 1993.

After unsuccessfully contesting Crosby in 1992, she was elected for the Liverpool Garston constituency at the 1997 general election.

Under Tony Blair, Eagle was a junior minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education and Skills and Northern Ireland Office.

She was Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice and Government Equalities Office under Gordon Brown.

In 1992 she became a solicitor with Goldsmith Williams in Liverpool, and later a Solicitor at Stephen Irving & Co also in Liverpool, where she remained until her election to Westminster.

She contested the Crosby seat at the 1992 general election where she lost to the sitting Conservative MP Malcolm Thornton by 14,806 votes.

At that election, her sister Angela gained the nearby seat of Wallasey which she has held ever since.

A member of the Labour Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Garston and Halewood, previously Liverpool Garston, since 1997.

The twin sister of Angela Eagle, also a Labour MP, Eagle was born in the East Riding of Yorkshire to a working-class family and raised in Merseyside.

She studied Philosophy, politics and economics at Pembroke College, Oxford and Law at the College of Law, London.

After graduating with her law degree, she worked as an articled clerk and solicitor in both London and Liverpool.

Prior to the general election in 1997, Eagle was selected through an all-women shortlist to stand for Labour in Liverpool Garston in Merseyside.

She was elected to the House of Commons with a majority of 18,417.

She made her maiden speech on 17 June 1997.

She became a member of the Public Accounts Committee and in 1999 she was appointed the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State at the Department of Health, John Hutton.

Her proposed ban on mink fur farming was defeated as a Private member's bill but subsequently picked up by the government and enacted as the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000.

Eagle was promoted to the Tony Blair government following the 2001 general election as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions.

Following the 2005 general election, she was the Minister for Children at the Department for Education and Skills, until the May 2006 reshuffle moved her to Northern Ireland, where she was minister for Employment and Learning.

Eagle was moved to the Ministry of Justice when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007.

In September 2008, she was nominated for Stonewall Politician of the Year for her work to support equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

As part of the government reshuffle in October 2008, she assumed additional responsibility for Equalities.

In the June 2009 reshuffle, she was promoted to Minister of State.

On 17 May 2009 The Daily Telegraph revealed that Eagle had claimed £3,500 for the refurbishment of the bathroom of her Liverpool home property, then switched her second home designation to a different property four months later.

Eagle voted in favour of legislation which would have kept MPs' expenses information secret.

Following the 2010 general election, Eagle became Shadow Solicitor General for England and Wales.

She served in the Shadow cabinet as Shadow Transport Secretary, Shadow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary, Shadow Defence Secretary and finally Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary.

In 2010, she was given a score of 93% in favour of lesbian, gay and bisexual equality by Stonewall.

Eagle was returned as MP for the new constituency of Garston and Halewood at the 2010 general election, following boundary changes.

After Labour lost the election, she served in interim Labour leader Harriet Harman's frontbench as Shadow Solicitor General for England and Wales and Shadow Minister for Justice.

In October 2010 Eagle was elected to the Shadow cabinet of new Labour Party leader Ed Miliband as Shadow Secretary of State for Transport in the Labour Party Shadow Cabinet election.

In February 2013, she voted in favour in the House of Commons Second Reading vote on marriage equality in Britain.

Eagle was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Defence in September 2015 by the newly elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

She resigned from the Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet in June 2016.

She was re-elected in 2017 and 2019.

She returned to the frontbench as Shadow Minister for Procurement in 2023.

Eagle was born in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, the daughter of Shirley ( Kirk), a factory worker, and André Eagle, a print worker.