Mike O'Brien (British politician)

Early life

O'Brien attended a Roman Catholic primary school, St George's and later attended Blessed Edward Oldcorne School (Worcester). He studied for a BA in History and Politics at North Staffordshire Polytechnic, then gained a PGCE. From 1977-80, he was a trainee solicitor, then trained as a teacher from 1980-1. He lectured in Business Law at Colchester College of Further and Higher Education from 1981-87. From 1987-92, he practised as a solicitor specialising in criminal law including handling cases of murder and City fraud and acted for a major defendant in the Knightsbridge Security Deposit robbery. He became a Queen's Counsel in 2007.

Parliamentary career

O'Brien contested Ruislip Northwood in 1983, and North Warwickshire in 1987. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for the West Midlands constituency of North Warwickshire at the 1992 general election, defeating the Conservative incumbent Francis Maude, and lost his seat to the Conservative candidate at the 2010 general election. He served on the Home Affairs Select Committee from November 1992 to May 1993 focusing on reports on Youth Justice and the defence of provocation in murder cases involving a spouse. In May 1993 he became the first Labour Parliamentary Adviser to the Police Federation in 20 years and subsequently transferred to the Treasury Select Committee where he worked on a report into the collapse of Barings Bank and other reports on City Fraud and Independence of the Bank of England.

Minister of State for Immigration

He served as Minister of State for Immigration in the Home Office from 1997–2001. During his time as Minister of State for Immigration net migration to the UK rose significantly. In 1997, annual net immigration stood at 56,000 but by 2001 net immigration had risen to 191,500. In March 1998, it was announced that UK immigration officers were instructed to stop checking the passports of passengers embarking at British ports and airports. Mike O'Brien described the procedure of checking passports as "routine and unproductive" but the Immigration Service Union criticised the move, saying the changes made it harder to ensure that illegal immigrants ordered out of the country actually left. In May 1998 Mike O'Brien announced that inhabitants of the island of Montserrat, which had been hit by volcanic eruptions, were able to stay in Britain indefinitely. O'Brien's time as Minister of State for Immigration was marred in the late 1990s by administrative problems including delays in officials giving clearance to NHS doctors and backlogs in processing applications for passports. The delays in issuing passports made national headlines and resulted in the UK Passport Agency being stripped of its Charter Mark for customer service. Mike O'Brien also developed procedures to deal with suspected terrorists at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. He also took through major reforms in the Immigration and Asylum Act, including introducing fines for hauliers found to have illegal migrants in their lorry, whether or not the haulier knew of their presence.

Hinduja affair

Whilst serving as Minister of State for Immigration, O'Brien had to deal with the 2001 Hinduja affair. His testimony that Peter Mandelson had telephoned him on behalf of S P Hinduja, who was at the time seeking British citizenship, led to Mandelson's resignation. An independent enquiry by Sir Anthony Hammond came to the conclusion that neither Mandelson nor anyone else had acted improperly.

Minister for Constitutional Affairs

From May 1999 he became the Minister for Constitutional Affairs, taking through the Commons the Freedom of Information Act, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, two Representation of the People Acts and introducing a White Paper on Alcohol Licensing Reform. As Minister responsible for Race Relations he developed the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 which placed obligations on all public bodies to promote good race relations. He also worked to develop closer links between the Government and the Muslim community, something he continued to work on over the next decade, particularly after 9/11.

Minister for the Middle East

At the Foreign Office from 2002 to 2003 he was Minister for the Middle East. He went to Libya to hold the first meeting of a British Minister with Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi which opened the way to better relations between Gadaffi's Libya and the West and helped lead to cooperation on ending controversial Libyan weapons research programmes. He was the first Western Minister into Baghdad after the Iraq War and worked on relationships with Iran, Syria and Afghanistan during this period.

Minister of State for Trade and Industry

He was then appointed Minister of State for Trade and Industry, dealing with talks with the WTO as part of the Doha Round and helping to write the 2004 Trade White Paper.

Minister of State for E-commerce, Energy & Competitiveness

Following a reshuffle, he became Minister of State for E-commerce, Energy & Competitiveness at the Department of Trade and Industry on 9 September 2004.

Solicitor General for England and Wales

After the 2005 general election he replaced Harriet Harman as Solicitor General for England and Wales.

On 29 June 2007 he was appointed as Minister of State for Pension Reform in the Department for Work and Pensions under Secretary of State Peter Hain. Referring to the long running Pensions Action Group campaign and speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Moneybox programme on the day compensation was announced, pensions expert Ros Altmann, credited Peter Hain and O'Brien with "having been very different to deal with than their predecessors and ... willing and eager to engage and find a way to sort this out." The Pensions Act 2008 completed its major stages whilst O' Brien was minister and received Royal Assent in November 2008.

Minister of State for Energy

On 5 October 2008, he became Minister of State for Energy in order to help create the new Department of Energy and Climate Change. He took through Parliament two Energy Acts making reforms to take account of the Climate Change debate and to enable the building of new nuclear power stations.

Minister of State for Health

In June 2009 he became the Minister of State for Health. As well as taking through administrative reforms of the NHS in two Acts of Parliament, he negotiated a settlement of compensation for the victims of Thalidomide and introduced priority NHS treatment of former service personnel injured in the line of duty.