Maria Eagle

Maria Eagle (born 17 February 1961) is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Minister of State for Defence Procurement and Industry in the Ministry of Defence since 2024. She has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Garston and Halewood, now Liverpool Garston, since 1997. She served in the Shadow cabinets of Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn.

The twin sister of Angela Eagle, also a Labour MP, Eagle was born in the East Riding of Yorkshire to a working-class family and raised in Merseyside. She studied Philosophy, politics and economics at Pembroke College, Oxford and Law at the College of Law, London. After graduating with her law degree, she worked as an articled clerk and solicitor in both London and Liverpool. After unsuccessfully contesting Crosby in 1992, she was elected as MP for Liverpool Garston at the 1997 general election.

Under Tony Blair, Eagle was a junior minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education and Skills and Northern Ireland Office. She was Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice and Government Equalities Office under Gordon Brown. Following the 2010 general election, Eagle became Shadow Solicitor General for England and Wales. She served in the Shadow cabinet as Shadow Transport Secretary, Shadow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary, Shadow Defence Secretary and finally Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary. She resigned from the Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet in June 2016. She returned to the frontbench as Shadow Minister for Procurement in 2023.

Early life and career
Maria Eagle was born on 17 February 1961 in Bridlington, the daughter of Shirley ( Kirk), a factory worker, and André Eagle, a print worker. She was educated at St Peter's Church of England School in Formby, Merseyside and Formby High School before attending Pembroke College, Oxford, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, politics and economics in 1983.

Eagle worked in the voluntary sector from 1983 to 1990, and then went to the College of Law, London, where she took her law finals in 1990, before she joined Brian Thompson & Partners in Liverpool as an articled clerk in 1990. In 1992 she became a solicitor with Goldsmith Williams in Liverpool, and later a Solicitor at Stephen Irving & Co also in Liverpool, where she remained until her election to Westminster.

After joining the Labour Party, Eagle was elected the secretary of the Crosby Constituency Labour Party (CLP) for two years in 1983, and was also elected as the campaigns organiser with that CLP for three years in 1993.

Parliamentary career
At the 1992 general election, Eagle stood as the Labour Party candidate in Crosby, coming second with 25.7% of the vote behind the incumbent Conservative MP Malcolm Thornton.

Backbencher
Prior to the 1997 general election, Eagle was selected through an all-women shortlist to stand as the Labour candidate in Liverpool Garston. Eagle was elected to Parliament as MP for Liverpool Garston with 61.3% of the vote and a majority of 18,417. She made her maiden speech on 17 June 1997.

She became a member of the Public Accounts Committee and in 1999 she was appointed the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State at the Department of Health, John Hutton. Her proposed ban on mink fur farming was defeated as a Private member's bill but subsequently picked up by the government and enacted as the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000.

Eagle was re-elected as MP for Liverpool Garston at the 2001 general election with an increased vote share of 61.4% and a decreased majority of 12,494.

Government minister
Eagle was promoted to the Tony Blair government following the 2001 general election as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions.

At the 2005 general election, Eagle was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 54% and a decreased majority of 7,193. Following the election, she was the Minister for Children at the Department for Education and Skills, until the May 2006 reshuffle moved her to Northern Ireland, where she was minister for Employment and Learning.

Eagle was moved to the Ministry of Justice when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007. In September 2008, she was nominated for Stonewall Politician of the Year for her work to support equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. As part of the government reshuffle in October 2008, she assumed additional responsibility for Equalities. In the June 2009 reshuffle, she was promoted to Minister of State.

Expenses controversy
On 17 May 2009, during the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, The Daily Telegraph revealed that Eagle had claimed £3,500 for the refurbishment of the bathroom of her Liverpool home, then switched her second home designation to a different property four months later. Eagle voted in favour of legislation which would have kept MPs' expenses information secret.

In opposition
Prior to the 2010 general election, Eagle's constituency of Liverpool Garston was abolished, and replaced with Garston and Halewood. At the 2010 general election, Eagle was elected to Parliament as MP for Garston and Halewood with 59.5% of the vote and a majority of 16,877.

After the election, she served in interim Labour leader Harriet Harman's frontbench as Shadow Solicitor General for England and Wales and Shadow Minister for Justice. In October 2010 Eagle was elected to the Shadow cabinet of new Labour Party leader Ed Miliband as Shadow Secretary of State for Transport in the Labour Party Shadow Cabinet election.

In February 2013, she voted in favour in the House of Commons Second Reading vote on marriage equality in Britain.

At the 2015 general election, Eagle was re-elected as MP for Garston and Halewood with an increased vote share of 69.1% and an increased majority of 27,146.

Eagle was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Defence in September 2015 by newly elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. She said she was surprised by her appointment as she had disagreed with Corbyn's advocacy of unilateral nuclear disarmament and supported the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system. Tasked with leading Labour's defence review, she said she would not rule out the possibility of it recommending unilateral disarmament. However, she described Corbyn commenting he would not countenance using a nuclear deterrent as "unhelpful" to the policy process.

In January 2016, Eagle was moved to the position of Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. She resigned from the shadow cabinet on 27 June 2016 in the mass resignation of the Shadow Cabinet following the Brexit referendum.

She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election.

At the snap 2017 general election, Eagle was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 77.7% and an increased majority of 32,149. She was again re-elected at the 2019 general election, with a decreased vote share of 72.3% and a decreased majority of 31,624.

She is a supporter of Labour Friends of Israel.

On 15 February 2023, she was appointed as a member of the Privy Council.

In the 2023 British shadow cabinet reshuffle, she was appointed Shadow Minister for Procurement.

In February 2024, Eagle was selected as the Labour candidate for the newly recreated constituency of Liverpool Garston, which she had represented from 1997 until it was replaced by Garston and Halewood in 2010.

Personal life
Following her initial election, Eagle joined her twin sister Angela in Parliament. Maria describes herself as "the straight one", while Angela is a lesbian.

Publications

 * High Time or High Tide for Labour Women? by Maria Eagle and Joni Lovenduski, 1998, Fabian Society Books, ISBN 0-7163-0585-2,