Quick Facts
Biography
Heidi Alexander (born 17 April 1975) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lewisham East since the 2010 general election. She was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Health on 13 September 2015. She resigned from the shadow cabinet on 26 June 2016.
Early life
The daughter of an electrician, Heidi Alexander was born in Swindon, Wiltshire, and attended the town's Churchfields Comprehensive School. She is a graduate of Durham University (Grey College, Durham) from where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography and a Masters degree in European Urban and Regional Change.
She worked as a researcher for MP Joan Ruddock for six years from 1999. She also worked as the Campaigns Manager for Clothes Aid.
Political career
Heidi Alexander was elected to Lewisham London Borough Council as a councillor for the Evelyn ward in 2004, and served as Deputy Mayor of Lewisham and Cabinet Member for regeneration from 2006. She was selected as the Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Lewisham East in October 2009 and was elected to Parliament in 2010.
She was a member of the Communities and Local Government Select Committee and supported Andy Burnham for the Labour leadership in 2010. Early in her parliamentary career she served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Mary Creagh MP and from 2012 serves as an Opposition Whip as well as (from December 2013) a Shadow Minister for London. She is the Chair of the APPG on Choice at the End of Life.
Alexander was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Health on 13 September 2015, the day after Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Labour Leader. On 26 June 2016, Alexander became the first of many Shadow Cabinet ministers to resign and call for a new party leader following the EU referendum result and sacking of Hilary Benn. "I loved being the shadow health secretary. But I hated being part of the shadow cabinet", Alexander wrote in The Guardian in August 2016, "because it was entirely dysfunctional" and "so inept, so unprofessional, so shoddy. There was no effort to build a team".
In January 2017, Alexander proposed a "reasoned amendment" to stop the trigger of Article 50.