Darren Jones (politician)

Darren Paul Jones (born 13 November 1986) is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury since July 2024, having served as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury from September 2023 to July 2024. The Member of Parliament (MP) for Bristol North West since 2017, he previously chaired the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee from 2020 to 2023.

Early life and education
Darren Jones was born on 13 November 1986 in Bristol, and grew up in Lawrence Weston. He attended Portway Community School in Shirehampton, a state comprehensive, before studying human bioscience at the University of Plymouth, where he was subsequently elected President of the Students' Union. Jones worked in the National Health Service and served on the boards of the University of Plymouth and the Plymouth NHS Trust, and had a weekly newspaper column in the Plymouth Herald. He later read law at the University of the West of England and the University of Law in Bristol before being admitted as a solicitor.

Legal career
A specialist in technology law, Jones initially worked at Womble Bond Dickinson LLP, before becoming an in-house counsel with BT, advising on data privacy, cyber-security, telecommunications and consumer law. In Bristol, he started a mentoring programme seeking to bring young people from his old school into the legal profession. Following the Brexit referendum in 2016, he sat on the board of UK Legal Futures, which brought together leading lawyers to advise politicians and civil servants on legal questions raised by Brexit.

Political career
Jones stood as the Labour candidate in Torridge and West Devon at the 2010 general election, coming fourth with 5.3% of the vote behind the incumbent Conservative MP Geoffrey Cox, the Liberal Democrat candidate, and the UKIP candidate. Jones later sat on the national youth committees of the Co-operative Party and Unite the Union and was elected to Unite's Regional Political Committee in the South West.

At the 2015 general election, Jones stood in Bristol North West, coming second with 34.4% of the vote behind the incumbent Conservative MP Charlotte Leslie. Following the 2015 election, Jones joined the campaign of Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham as its South West Co-ordinator, and chaired Marvin Rees' successful campaign to become Mayor of Bristol.

In 2016 he joined the Remain campaign in the EU membership referendum and chaired the Young Lawyers' Network, a nationwide group campaigning for a vote to remain in the European Union in the 2016 referendum. Later in 2016, he went to the United States to work for the Clinton campaign in Miami during that year's US Presidential election.

Jones is also the chair of Labour Digital, a Labour think tank.

2017 – 2019 Parliament
At the 2017 general election, Jones was elected the Member of Parliament for Bristol North West, overturning a Conservative majority of 4,944 on a 9.2 percent swing. In his maiden speech, Jones noted that he was the first Darren ever elected to Parliament. Between 2017 and 2020, Jones was a member of the cross-party Science and Technology Committee and the European Scrutiny Committee. In 2019, then Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Tom Watson, appointed Jones as the Convenor of the Future Britain Group, which was established following a number of defections from the Labour Party in a bid to prevent further defections.

2019 – 2024 Parliament
Jones was re-elected at the 2019 general election, with an increased majority of 5,692 but a decreased vote share of 48.9%.

Following Keir Starmer's election as Labour leader in April 2020, Jones was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary jointly to Shadow Justice Secretary David Lammy and Shadow Attorney General Charlie Falconer, and served until his election as Chair of the House of Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee. Jones sits on the National Security Strategy Joint Committee and, following the introduction of the National Security and Investment Act 2021, became responsible as Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee for holding the Government to account for its use of national security powers. He has also served on the Liaison Committee, the committee that scrutinises the Prime Minister. As a member of that committee, Jones had frequent notable exchanges with then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson,  including during the final days prior to Johnson announcing his resignation in July 2022 when Jones informed him that his cabinet was waiting for him in No 10 Downing Street to tell him to resign.

He has been involved in issues including the withholding of redundancy payments from Astra Zeneca workers, the campaign to increase miners' pensions through the Mineworkers Pension Scheme, and the British Post Office scandal, the right for workers to join a trade union at Amazon and the dispute related to changes at Royal Mail. In 2020, he introduced the UK's first citizens assembly on net zero to Parliament,. He has also led Parliamentary inquiries into the decarbonisation of heating, electricity and industry, as well as reform of the energy market in the United Kingdom.

In 2021, Jones passed the Forensic Science Regulator Act 2021, having been successful in the ballot for a Private Members Bill, giving the forensic science regulator statutory powers to ensure service quality standards from the privatised forensic science companies working with the police.

In 2019 he co-chaired a Parliamentary inquiry into technology ethics. He leads the Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum and the Data Poverty and Technology and National Security All Party Parliamentary Groups. In January 2021, during the Covid pandemic, he introduced a Ten Minute Rule Bill seeking to force internet service providers to offer a social tariff to families in receipt of Universal Credit. Jones is the founder and chair of the Interparliamentary Forum on Emerging Technologies, a global network of legislators interested in emerging technology regulation, and in 2021 was appointed to the Online Safety Bill pre-legislative scrutiny committee.

In 2022, Jones was appointed as a member of the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly which was established under the terms of the 2021 Trade and Co-operation Agreement between the UK and the EU and acts as a forum for parliamentarians to exchange views on the implementation and operation of the Agreement. In the 2023 British shadow cabinet reshuffle, he joined the shadow cabinet as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

Jones was re-selected as the Labour candidate for Bristol North West in May 2024.

Political positions
Politico Europe has described Jones as being on the Labour right, and he has described Tony Blair as one of his political heroes.

He has been noted as a prominent voice in debates on technology policy in Parliament, and has described himself as a techno-optimist. He supported Remain in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. He has supported electoral reform to a proportional system. He has opposed ending UK arms sales to Israel during the Israel–Hamas war, saying that it would not end the war.

Personal life
Jones is married to net zero consultant and technology entrepreneur Lucy Symons-Jones, who co-founded the renewable energy company Village Infrastructure. They have three daughters. Jones became a vegan in 2014, for reasons related to carbon emissions and agriculture, although he is sometimes vegetarian.

Jones was sworn of the Privy Council on 10 July 2024, entitling him to be styled "The Right Honourable" for life.