Preceded by Jon Trickett Role Political leader Name Stewart Baron | Political party Labour Succeeded by TBD Party Labour Party | |
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Born 25 March 1968 (age 56) ( 1968-03-25 ) Alma mater University College, Oxford Education Harvard University, University College, Oxford | ||
Stewart Martin Wood, Baron Wood of Anfield (born 25 March 1968) is a Labour life peer in the House of Lords.
Wood grew up in Tonbridge, Kent and attended the Judd School. In 1986 he went to University College, Oxford, where he obtained a first-class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He then went to Harvard University as a Fulbright Scholar where he completed a PhD in Government in 1996.
He has taught at Oxford University since 1995. From 1996 to 2011 he was a Politics Tutor at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he is still an (unpaid) emeritus fellow. In 2016 he was appointed a Fellow of Practice at the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford.
From 2001 to 2007 he was a member of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Council of Economic Advisers, specialising in education policy, local government affairs & EU policy. He was part of the Treasury team that delivered the "Five Tests" assessment recommending that the UK not join the Euro in 2003. From 2007 to 2010 he served as an adviser to Gordon Brown, Prime Minister covering foreign policy; Northern Ireland; and culture, media and sports policy. After the 2010 election he helped run Ed Miliband's campaign to become Leader of the Labour Party, and served as an adviser to Ed Miliband, the Labour party's leader, from 2010 to 2015.
On 15 January 2011, Wood was created a life peer with the title Baron Wood of Anfield, of Tonbridge in the County of Kent, and was introduced in the House of Lords on 18 January 2011, where he sits as a Labour peer. From 2011 to 2015 he served as a Shadow Minister without Portfolio.
Wood's research and writing focuses on contemporary political economy in Europe, German politics, American politics, and public policy issues around industrial policy & the future of the welfare state. He worked with the think tank Policy Network on the concept of pre-distribution as a means to tackle what Ed Miliband has described as 'the growing crisis in living standards'. The announcement that pre-distribution would become a cornerstone of the UK Labour Party's economic policy was jokingly mocked by Prime Minister David Cameron during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons. Given that the ideal of a predistributive "property owning democracy" was first put forward by the Scottish conservative MP Noel Skelton and was later endorsed by Margaret Thatcher, this was an odd turn for Conservative policy to take.
In July 2016 he succeeded Jeremy Greenstock as Chair of the United Nations Association (UNA-UK). In the same month he was appointed to the Board of the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission. He has been a Board member of the Royal Court Theatre since 2006.
He is a fan of Jethro Tull, Liverpool F.C. & Kent County Cricket Club.