Glenys Kinnock

Glenys and Neil Kinnock with their daughter-in-law Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Danish Prime Minister

Glenys Elizabeth Kinnock, Baroness Kinnock and Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (born 7 July 1944) is a British politician.

Glenys Kinnock was a Labour Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1994 to 2009. She is the wife of Neil Kinnock, who was leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992. When Neil Kinnock received a life peerage in 2005, Glenys became entitled to the style "Lady Kinnock", which she chose not to use. She was awarded a life peerage when she joined Gordon Brown's government in 2009. Lord and Lady Kinnock are one of the few couples to both hold titles – in this case a Life Peerage – in their own right. She is currently the Opposition Spokesperson for the Department of International Development in the House of Lords.

Early life

Glenys Kinnock was born at Roade, Northamptonshire, and educated at Holyhead High School, Anglesey. She graduated in 1965 from University College, Cardiff in education and history. She met her future husband Neil Kinnock at university during the first half of the 1960s and married him in 1967. She has worked as a teacher in secondary, primary, infant and nursery schools, including the Wykeham Primary School, Neasden, London. She is a member of the GMB trade union, the Co-operative Party, and the National Union of Teachers (NUT). She speaks Welsh.

European Parliament

Glenys Kinnock represented Wales in the European Parliament from 1994 until 2009, where she was a member of the Party of European Socialists political group. She was a Member of the European Parliament's Development and Co-operation Committee and a substitute member of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.. She was also co-president of the African, Caribbean and Pacific-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly from 2002 until 2009 and was Labour spokesperson on International Development in the European Parliament.

In November 2006, Glenys Kinnock was criticised in the press for "taking a junket" to Barbados to discuss world poverty issues. She was co-presiding over the 12th ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly which was invited by the Barbados government to discuss international aid and development.

On 18 January 2009 Glenys Kinnock revealed on the BBC's The Andrew Marr Show that she and Neil Kinnock had received a personal invitation from Joe Biden to attend Barack Obama's presidential inauguration on 20 January 2009 at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

In 2004, Glenys Kinnock was caught up in an expenses scandal. Fellow MEP Hans-Peter Martin claimed to have caught 194 colleagues receiving the European Parliament's attendance allowance. Kinnock was among those MEPs whom Martin found and filmed leaving the building just moments after they had signed in for the day to qualify for their £175-a-day allowance, in addition to their £70,000 salaries as MEPs.

United Kingdom Parliament

In the 2009 cabinet reshuffle, Glenys Kinnock was appointed Minister for Europe following the resignation of Caroline Flint. To enable her to join the government, she was awarded a life peerage and became Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead in the County of Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn), on 30 June 2009. She was introduced to the House of Lords on the same day.

In September 2009, The Daily Telegraph listed Baroness Kinnock as the UK's 38th 'Most influential Left-winger', stating: "People working closely with the new minister have asked why on earth better use had not been made of her sooner. She has impressed civil servants and, more importantly, made a good impression on visits and in meetings abroad."

From 12 October 2009 to 11 May 2010, Glenys Kinnock served as Minister of State with responsibility for Africa, the Caribbean, Central America and the UN, filling a post left vacant after the resignation of Lord Malloch Brown. Baroness Kinnock has long been a campaigner on issues relating to Africa and the Caribbean and cemented her reputation as an expert on the regions during her time as a Member of the European Parliament and as co-president of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly.

Patron and honours

Baroness Kinnock is a Council Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

She is a patron, president or board member of a number of charitable organisations, including Saferworld, Drop the Debt, EdUKaid, Parliamentarians for Global Action,The Burma Campaign UK, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Voluntary Service Overseas, Freedom from Torture,, and the British Humanist Association. She is also Patron to the Welsh children's charity, Snap Cymru, Council member of the Overseas Development Institute and member of Advisory Board of Global Witness.

Glenys Kinnock founded One World Action (formerly "The Bernt Carlsson Trust") on 21 December 1989, exactly one year after UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was targeted on Pan Am Flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December 1988. In December 2007, a United Nations inquiry was called for into Bernt Carlsson's death.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an honorary Fellow of the University of Wales, Newport and the University of Wales, Bangor. She holds honorary Doctorates from Thames Valley University, Brunel University and Kingston University.

Publications

• Voices for One World, 1987
• Eritrea - images of war and peace, 1988
• Namibia - birth of a nation, 1991
• By Faith and Daring, 1993
• Zimbabwe on the brink, 2002
• "The rape of Darfur", 2006, The Guardian
• "A lethal bully that must be tackled", 2006, The Times
• "The need for an ethical foreign policy, Mark II", 2007, The Independent
• "Cambodia's Brazen U.N. Bid", 2012, The New York Times

See also

• The how, why and who of Pan Am Flight 103

External links

• Profile at European Parliament website
• Speeches made in the European Parliament
• Mrs Kinnock, co-president of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 15 August 2013.
Wikipedia is not affiliated with Wikispooks.   Original page source here