Tessa Jowell

Labour MP Dulwich and West Norwood

Date of birth

17 September 1947

Political profile

Tessa Jowell joined the Cabinet in 2001 as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, having served as a minister throughout the 1997 Parliament, initially at the Department of Health and later as Minister for Equal Opportunities.

As culture secretary, she has introduced plans to liberalise gambling and also a shake-up in Britain's media ownership laws.

A former psychiatric social worker and deputy director of MIND, she has long campaigned on issues of social justice and health provision.

She does not share the hard left past of many of her colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party, and has always been a pro-European moderate since her days as a Camden councillor.

She was the focus of controversy in 1997 when, as minister for public health, she was at the centre of the Ecclestone affair over tobacco sponsorship of Formula One.

Contact

Commons office: 020 7219 3409

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