Philip Hunt - Parliamentary Career

Parliamentary Career

In 1997, Hunt was created a life peer with the title Baron Hunt of Kings Heath, of Birmingham in the County of West Midlands. He served as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Health from 1999 until his resignation in 2003 over the Invasion of Iraq. He was re-appointed to government in May 2005 as a PUSS at the Department for Work and Pensions. He returned to the Department of Health as Minister of State in January 2007 and then moved to the Ministry of Justice as a PUSS in July of that year. In the October 2008 government reshuffle, Lord Hunt became Minister of State in both the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the newly created Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), as well as acting as the Deputy Leader of the House of Lords. In the June 2009 reshuffle he left DEFRA to focus solely on his roles in the Lords and at the DECC. He was sworn of the Privy Council the same month. In May 2010, he left the DECC when Labour lost the general election.

Following the election of Ed Miliband as Labour Party leader, Lord Hunt was appointed Labour's spokesman on Home Affairs in the House of Lords. He also serves as Labour's Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Lords.

in April 2011 he was appointed Chair of Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust.

In September 2011 he contributed to the book What next for Labour? Ideas for a new generation, his piece was entitled Our NHS: The Labour Party Challenge.