Meg Hillier

Margaret Olivia Hillier (born 14 February 1969) is a British Labour Co-operative politician who was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney South and Shoreditch at the 2005 general election, and was a junior government minister (2007–10) and was succeeded by Caroline Flint as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the Labour Party October 2011 reshuffle.

Hillier was educated at Portsmouth High School, a private school for girls in Southsea, Hampshire, followed by St Hilda's College at the University of Oxford, where she read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and during her time there; was elected Librarian of the Oxford Union Society.

Hillier worked as a journalist and was elected as a Councillor in the London Borough of Islington in 1994, representing the Sussex ward and serving as the Mayor of Islington in 1998, before standing down from the Council in 2002. She was elected as a founding Member of the London Assembly for North East London at the first London Assembly election of 2000, she served on the Assembly until 2004, and was a board member of Transport for London until she was elected to Parliament.

In 2004, Hillier was selected as the Labour candidate to contest the Hackney South and Shoreditch through an all-women shortlist. She was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election following the retirement of theLabour MP Brian Sedgemore.

During the election campaign, Sedgemore resigned from Labour and joined the Liberal Democrats in protest at the attack on Iraq. Hillier retained the safe seat with a majority of more than 10,000 votes. She made her maiden speech on 24 May 2005, noting there were more men in the House of Commons that day than there had ever been women MPs.

She served as member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee for a year until she was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Ruth Kelly in 2006. In June 2007, she was appointed a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office.

During maternity leave beginning in March 2009, her ministerial role was taken over by Shahid Malik. In March 2008, Hillier voted with the Government in favour of nationwide Post Office closures, including seven in Hackney, of which her constituency forms a part.

In December 2009, while promoting the unpopular National Identity Card scheme as Identity Minister in Liverpool, she admitted she had forgotten her own ID card, attributing the error to the demands of looking after her baby.

In June 2015, Hillier was elected Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in succession to Margaret Hodge.She was, as a result, among the 100 most influential people in the NHS according to the Health Service Journal in 2016.As chair, she has been critical of the Troubled Families programme, saying that the PAC's conclusions on the programme were "far more serious" than "a slap on the wrist" for ministers.

She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour Party (UK) leadership election.

Hillier has served Trustee of the War Memorials Trust since 2001.

She stood for election as Speaker of the House of Commons during 2019 Speaker of the British House of Commons election. However, she did not make it, securing the least amount of votes in the first round.

Meg Hillier married Joe Simpson in 1997; the couple have three children.