Ruth Maria Kelly (born 9 May 1968) is a Northern Irish lobbyist and former politician and government minister currently serving as the chair of Water UK, the trade association representing all of the water and wastewater companies of the United Kingdom.
She was previously a British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolton West from 1997 to 2010. During her time in post, she served in Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's governments as the Secretary of State for Transport, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Minister for Women and Equality and Secretary of State for Education and Skills.
Early life and family Kelly was born in Limavady, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Her mother was a teacher and her father ran a pharmacy. Her maternal grandfather had been the teacher of a village school in Altishane, County Tyrone. She lived briefly in the Republic of Ireland before moving to England, where she was educated at a number of private schools. She initially attended Edgarley Hall, the preparatory school for Millfield School. She was then educated at the independent Sutton High School, run by the Girls' Day School Trust (GDST) After being moved up a year and sitting O-levels at Sutton High School at the age of 15, she decided to move back to Ireland to look after her ill grandmother. Her grandmother died after six weeks, but Kelly stayed for a year, living with her aunt and taking A-level French. She returned to England on winning a scholarship to the sixth-form of Westminster School.
Kelly then enrolled at The Queen's College, Oxford, where she studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1986 (having originally won a place to study medicine), graduating in 1989. She then undertook postgraduate study at the London School of Economics, where she was awarded a MSc degree in economics in 1992.
Kelly taught at University of Navarra, after she joined the Labour Party in 1990, becoming a member of the party's Bethnal Green and Stepney constituency party.
She was an economics writer for The Guardian from 1990, before becoming deputy head of the Inflation Report Division of the Bank of England in 1994.
She married Derek John Gadd, a local government officer, in 1996, and they have four children.
Family history Kelly's maternal grandfather, Philip Murphy, served as an officer in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921). In 1922 he was interned by the Government of Northern Ireland. Murphy's detention file refers to him as 'quartermaster of the West Fermanagh IRA Battalion'. He went on hunger strike to protest at his detention. He was released unconditionally in June 1924, when internment ended. Her paternal grandfather Francis (Frank) Kelly joined the Connaught Rangers and served in France during the First World War. After the war, he returned to County Tyrone and took up a post of School Master in Altishane. His first wife died leaving a young family of six. He remarried Mary Agnes and had another six children. One of them James (Seamus) was Ruth's father.
Religion Kelly is a practising Roman Catholic, a member of the Opus Dei,Opus Dei Catholic sect confirms Kelly is a member The Scotsman, 21 January 2005.Nick Assinder: Blair faces new Church protest, BBC News, 23 January 2007.Matthew Tempest: No 10 mulls Catholic opt-out from gay rights law , "The Guardian", 23 January 2007. and a regular attender at their meetings and events.Steve Bloomfield: Opus Dei: Jack Valero speaks for an evil sect, says 'The Da Vinci Code' , The Independent, 10 May 2006. Her brother, Ronan Kelly, is also a member of the group. Previously, uncertainty existed over Kelly's membership; she declined to say whether or not she was a member, saying only that she had received 'spiritual support' from the organisation.George Jones: Opus Dei will not limit me, says Kelly , Telegraph.co.uk, 24 January 2005. Kelly is Vice President of the Catholic Union of Great Britain.
Parliamentary career In the 1997 general election, Kelly gained the seat of Bolton West from the Conservatives as part of the Labour Party landslide. She was elected while heavily pregnant, and gave birth to her first son eleven days later.
Throughout her first term as an MP, she served on the Treasury Select Committee; she was also appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Agriculture Minister, Nick Brown, from 1998. Kelly was a member of a commission set up by the Institute for Public Policy Research into the Private Finance Initiative, which expressed some scepticism about the operation of the policy.
After Labour won the 2001 general election, Kelly was appointed as Economic Secretary to the Treasury. Her role focused on competition policy and small businesses. After a year she was promoted to be Financial Secretary to the Treasury, giving her responsibility for regulation of the financial services industry. In both positions her principal task was in the thorough revision of the Financial Services regulation system which was introduced by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Kelly brought in new regulations to tackle the funding of terrorism after September 2001 attacks.
Kelly was assigned the task of dealing with Equitable Life after the Penrose Report into the life insurance company was published. She rejected calls for government compensation to Equitable policyholders, on the grounds that the losses arose from actions of the company rather than from any defect of regulation, and that it was still trading. Equitable policyholders continued to demand redress.
As a mother of four young children, she refused to work the long hours normally associated with such positions and refused to take a red box in the evening whilst at the Treasury.Marie Woolf: Ruth Kelly MP: 'I don't have the choice of taking red boxes home. I have four children, and they want their mum' , The Independent, 29 March 2004.
In a minor reshuffle, she was promoted to be Minister for the Cabinet Office on 9 September 2004, replacing Douglas Alexander. Kelly guided the Civil Contingencies Bill through its final stages in Parliament, which faced serious objections from some civil liberties campaigns.
Party loyalty Kelly rarely went against the party whip, being a very consistent supporter of any and all government policy and even in the most divisive votes over Labour's term, she followed the party line. She voted for the Iraq War, and subsequently voted against an independent investigation into the run-up to the war. Kelly also voted for the introduction of tuition top-up fees, in a vote that saw a massive rebellion amongst Labour MPs. She also voted for the introduction of identity cards, voted for replacing Trident, and argued against the addition of a sunset clause in part 2 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. In a free parliamentary vote on 20 May 2008, Kelly voted for cutting the upper limit for abortions from 24 to 12 weeks, along with two other Catholic cabinet ministers Des Browne and Paul Murphy."MPs back 24-week abortion limit" , BBC News, 20 May 2008.
Cabinet career
Secretary of State for Education and Skills In the reshuffle following the resignation of David Blunkett on 15 December 2004, Kelly entered the Cabinet (and thus becoming a member of the Privy Council) with the position of Secretary of State for Education and Skills. She became the youngest woman ever to sit in the Cabinet.
The Government's Extended Schools policy, which planned to open some schools from 8am to 6pm and provide child-care services for working parents, was dubbed by some as "Kelly hours" after Kelly,Rebecca Smithers: Dawn to dusk care plan for schools , The Guardian, 13 June 2005. although the National Childcare Strategy with before and after-school care funded in most schools by the New Opportunities Fund pre-dated extended schools (and Kelly's ministerial tenure) by several years. The extended schools initiative was predicated on wider use of and access to schools as community resources, not just for parents and children. Her proposals in the 2005 white paper to reduce the number and influence of parent governors in trust schools were seen as a partial reversal of this earlier stance.
Kelly attracted considerable criticism by rejecting the proposals of the Tomlinson report on education reform for the 14–19 age group, which suggested replacing A-level exams with a four-tier diploma. After the 2005 election, it was rumoured that she was to be demoted back into her old post at the Treasury and although she kept her position at the DfES, she was said to have been "less than thrilled" by the appointment of Tony Blair's adviser Andrew Adonis as a Minister within her department.
Sex offenders in schools controversy On 9 January 2006, it came to light that Kelly's department had granted permission for a man who had been cautioned by police for viewing child pornography images and who was on a sex offenders register to be employed at a school, on the basis that he had not been convicted of an offence. He, and an unknown number of others on the sex offenders register, were not on the DfES prohibited list, "List 99". On 13 January, Kim Howells, a Minister of State at the DfES, admitted that it was he who had actually made the decision, in accordance with advice given to him by civil servants that the "person did not represent an ongoing threat to children but that he should be given a grave warning". In response to the critical media coverage surrounding the issue, Downing Street issued a statement confirming their confidence in Kelly and denying rumours that she was to be replaced.
There was further controversy when it transpired that another teacher had been cleared to work at a school, despite the fact that he had been convicted in 1980 for indecent assault on a 15-year-old girl and had been previously removed from three schools. A letter from the Department for Education that suggested the Secretary of State had considered his case and found that although his past actions had been unwise and unacceptable, he had undertaken teaching work to good effect since.
Trust schools
A controversy in Kelly's time at the DfES was the proposed introduction of trust schools. The Trusts were intended to be non-profit making and to have charitable status, although they could be formed by commercial enterprises. In fact, one of the early DfES-hosted seminars on the establishment of Trusts included representatives from Microsoft and KPMG. However, it was their ability to set their own admission arrangements that generated the most criticism.
A large number of Labour backbenchers, as well as numerous party luminaries like Neil Kinnock and former Education Secretary Estelle Morris, made known their opposition to the proposals and published an alternative white paper. Faced with such a rebellion, the government initially stressed that it would "press on" with the reforms. However, new Tory leader David Cameron unexpectedly announced that these reforms were in line with Tory policies and that he would support the bill if presented in the proposed form. The government were faced with the prospect of pushing through their reforms only with opposition support and in the face of increased resistance from its own supporters.
When the Education and Inspections Bill 2006 was finally published on 28 February 2006, it contained much of what had been trailed, although most notable by its absence was any mention of "trust school". Foundation and Voluntary Aided schools were left to pick up the mantle of trust schools.
Religion and political views The effect of her religious viewpoint on her opinions regarding controversial scientific questions has been of concern to some scientists who have speculated that her religious views could have an effect on government policy regarding stem cell research.
Children's schooling