Wes Streeting

Wesley Paul William Streeting (born 21 January 1983) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since July 2024. A member of the Labour Party, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ilford North since 2015.

Brought up in Stepney, Streeting attended Westminster City School. He studied history at the University of Cambridge and was President of the Cambridge Students' Union from 2004 to 2005. He was the president of the National Union of Students (NUS) from 2008 to 2010. He also worked for Progress, a Labour Party-related organisation, for a year before working in the public sector. In 2010, he was elected to the Redbridge London Borough Council for the Labour Party and became Deputy Leader of the council in May 2014. Streeting was elected to parliament as MP for Ilford North in the 2015 general election and resigned as the council's deputy leader before standing down as a councillor in 2018. He was reelected in both the 2017 and 2019 general elections.

Streeting endorsed Jess Phillips for the 2020 Labour leadership election and Rosena Allin-Khan for the deputy leadership election. However, he later supported Ian Murray for the deputy leadership after Allin-Khan was defeated. Following Keir Starmer's election as Labour Party leader in the leadership election, he joined the frontbench as Shadow Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury in April 2020. He became the Shadow Minister for Schools in October 2020 after the resignation of Margaret Greenwood before joining the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Child Poverty in the May 2021 British shadow cabinet reshuffle. In the November 2021 shadow cabinet reshuffle, Streeting became, following a promotion by Starmer, the Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care; a position he remained in until July 2024.

Streeting retained his seat in the 2024 general election by a narrow margin, defeating independent candidate Leanne Mohamad. After Labour's victory in the general election, Streeting was appointed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the Starmer cabinet. He declared the NHS to be broken and has vowed to resolve the junior doctor strikes and decrease waiting times.

Early life, family and education
Wesley Paul William Streeting was born on 21 January 1983 and was brought up in Stepney, London. His parents were teenagers when he was born. He has five brothers, a sister and a stepsister. His maternal grandfather was an armed robber who spent time in prison, and his grandmother became embroiled in his crimes and ended up in Holloway jail, where she met Christine Keeler (a key figure in the Profumo affair). According to Streeting, they "stayed in touch, they became friends". His grandmother was released from prison to give birth to his mother at Whittington Hospital.

Streeting's two grandfathers, both named Bill, were key figures in his youth. His maternal grandfather, Bill Crowley, was acquainted with the infamous East End Krays. He was "really well read and well informed", and engaged his grandson in lively discussions about religion and politics. Streeting's paternal grandfather served in the Second World War in the Royal Navy and later in the merchant navy before becoming a civil engineer. He recalled: "He was the grandad I was closest to. He was a traditional working-class Tory."

Streeting grew up in poverty living in a council flat. He recalls Conservative Party politicians, particularly Ann Widdecombe, in the 1990s "denigrating single-parent families like mine, which I took quite personally". He was educated at Westminster City School, a comprehensive state school in Victoria, London, where he studied history, politics, and religious studies at A-level, receiving three A grades. He went on to study history at the University of Cambridge where he was an undergraduate student of Selwyn College, Cambridge. Streeting had previously left the Labour Party because he opposed its decision to enter the Iraq War, but argued that Tony Blair did not act with malign intent.

Streeting came out as gay in his second year of university. He was elected President of Cambridge Students' Union for the 2004–05 academic year, a sabbatical officer role. As President, he campaigned against the proposed closure of Cambridge University's architecture department.

Early career (2008–2010)
As President of the NUS, Streeting was a strong proponent of his predecessor Gemma Tumelty's proposed reforms to the NUS governance structures, which had been denounced and narrowly defeated by many left-wing groups in NUS as an attack on NUS democracy. His election was reported by The Guardian as "a move that will lend weight to the fight to modernise the union". As NUS President, Streeting was a non-executive director of the NUS's trading arm, NUS Services Ltd, and of Endsleigh Insurance. He was also a non-executive director of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), as well as the Higher Education academy, having served on their board as Vice President (Education) when he was also a non-executive director of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIAHE). Shortly after his election as NUS President, Streeting was appointed as a member of the government's Youth Citizenship Commission, chaired by Professor Jonathan Tonge of the University of Liverpool, which published its report in June 2009. Streeting supported university tuition fees as president, consistent with UK government policy during the New Labour years. As The Independent pointed out, Streeting's decision put the NUS position on student fees to the right of the Liberal Democrats, who had just committed to a policy of free education for all.

Streeting worked for the Labour Party-related organisation Progress for a year. Progress was a pressure group created to support Tony Blair's New Labour in 1996 and continued to promote the thinking of the Blairite-Brownite wing of Labour until 2014. Progress was funded by David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville and coincided with Blair's announcement that he would abolish the party's Clause IV commitment to old-style public ownership.

After completing his term as President of the NUS, Streeting served as Chief Executive of the Helena Kennedy Foundation, an educational charity that promotes access to higher education for students from further education colleges. He went on to serve as head of education at Stonewall, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights charity (for one year and six months), where he led their Education for All campaign to tackle homophobia in schools.

He was subsequently a public sector consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which he gave up on election as a councillor, because Redbridge Council was a "current audit client" of the firm; this forced him to choose between keeping his job or forcing a second by-election. In 2010, shortly after leaving PwC, Streeting was appointed as Head of Policy and Strategic Communications for Oona King's unsuccessful bid to win the Labour Party's nomination to be its candidate in the 2012 London Mayoral election.

Council career (2010–2018)
In a July 2010 by-election, Streeting was elected as a Labour councillor for the Chadwell ward on Redbridge London Borough Council, having stood unsuccessfully for that council's Roding ward two months earlier. He held the seat for Labour by 220 votes, winning with 31.5% of the vote on a 25.5% turnout. The by-election had been triggered by a previously elected candidate subsequently being found to be ineligible to serve on the council. Streeting was elected as Deputy Leader of the Labour Group in October 2011.

At a public meeting of the Redbridge Citizens' Assembly on 6 May 2014, Streeting promised on behalf of his group that, if they won the election, they would not reduce the level of Council Tax support provided to low-income working-age residents. In May 2014, Labour took control of Redbridge Council for the first time and Streeting was appointed Deputy Leader of the council, with Jas Athwal as Leader. Once elected, the Labour council proceeded to cut the level of council tax support, so as to treble the amount of Council Tax paid by supported residents from April 2016; the council made a further reduction from April 2017, and made a third reduction from April 2018.

Streeting resigned as Deputy Leader in May 2015, shortly after being elected Member of Parliament for Ilford North. Whilst he remained a backbench councillor following his election to Parliament, he chose not to claim his councillor allowance. Streeting did not stand for re-election after being elected to Parliament, and ceased to be a councillor on 7 May 2018.

Backbenches (2015–2020)
At the 2015 general election, Streeting was elected to Parliament as MP for Ilford North with 43.9% of the vote and a majority of 589. After being elected to Parliament, Streeting was elected Honorary President of the British Youth Council. In April 2016 Streeting criticised the Labour Party for refusing a £30,000 donation from McDonald's. According to Labour, the refusal was due to the company's poor record on worker's rights and hostile stance towards trade unions. Streeting campaigned in favour of the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union in the run-up to the 2016 EU membership referendum. He later campaigned for a People's Vote, a campaign group calling for a public vote on the final Brexit deal between the UK and the European Union.

At the snap 2017 general election, Streeting was re-elected as MP for Ilford North with an increased vote share of 57.8% and an increased majority of 9,639. Streeting is a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism, a co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Jews and a supporter of Labour Friends of Israel. He is also a co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims and a supporter of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East. In September 2018, he held the last in a series of London-wide consultations to create the Working Definition of Islamophobia. In July 2018, Streeting called for "targeted economic sanctions" against Israeli settlements in the West Bank in response to the Israeli government "grossly infringing on the human rights of Palestinians". In July 2019, Streeting was reported in the media as using abusive language towards a non-Jewish antisemitism campaigner.

Shortly before the 2019 general election, Streeting told a Labour First meeting that the party faced electoral oblivion in any snap poll due to the leadership's poor handling of Brexit and allegations of antisemitism. At the election, Streeting was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 50.5% and a decreased majority of 5,198. Following Labour's defeat in the general election, Streeting nominated Jess Phillips and Rosena Allin-Khan in the 2020 Labour Party leadership and deputy leadership elections, and, after Allin-Khan did not win, subsequently endorsed Ian Murray for the deputy leadership.

At the 2024 general election, Streeting retained his Ilford North constituency by a margin of only 528 votes following a challenge by independent British-Palestinian candidate Leanne Mohamad, who ran in protest against Labour's stance on the Israel-Hamas war and the Gaza humanitarian crisis. She ran in protest against Labour's stance on the Israel-Hamas war and the Gaza humanitarian crisis. While she was not elected, Streeting's unexpectedly narrow margin of victory provoked media and political attention, especially in the context of the simultaneous victory of several independent candidates against Labour running on platforms critical of the party's response to the conflict.

Frontbench (2020–2024)
After the election of Keir Starmer as Leader of the Labour Party, Streeting was appointed Shadow Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury. On 16 October 2020, Streeting became Shadow Minister for Schools in succession to Margaret Greenwood, who had resigned the previous day following her opposition to the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill. In the May 2021 shadow cabinet reshuffle, Streeting was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Child Poverty. He was promoted to the post of Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the November 2021 shadow cabinet reshuffle.

In February 2022, Streeting was re-selected as the Labour candidate for Ilford North at the 2024 general election. Streeting was ranked sixth in the New Statesman's Left Power List of May 2023, described as "one of the most prominent and confident members" of the shadow cabinet. In July 2023, Streeting apologised in response to the treatment of Rosie Duffield by Labour for her views opposing gender self-identification and gender recognition reforms – which have been criticised as transphobic – while acknowledging that the two had differing opinions on transgender rights. In January 2024, he supported single-sex wards in hospitals, with the possibility of separate wards for transgender people in the future. Streeting welcomed the final report of the Cass Review, which dealt with gender services for children and young people, in April 2024. He said that the report "must provide a watershed moment for the NHS's gender identity services" and "provide[d] an evidence-led framework to deliver that". In an interview with The Sun, Streeting stated that he no longer considers his stance on trans rights to be "some people are trans, get over it, let's move on." Instead, he reflects that "there are lots of complexities" in the ongoing debate, while affirming his continued support for transgender rights.

Health Secretary (2024–present)
In July 2024, Streeting was appointed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. He became a member of the Privy Council on 10 July 2024. Declaring the NHS to be broken, Streeting has vowed to resolve the junior doctor strikes and decrease waiting times.

Political positions
Streeting has said he suggested "working with the best of British business to reform the worst of British capitalism". In 2020, Streeting said he wanted to tax capital gains on the same basis as income and suggested replacing inheritance tax with a lifetime gifts tax. He supports an increase in corporation tax. He has promoted the establishment of a Good Work Commission to bring together the relevant stakeholders to negotiate a new employment rights settlement.

Although Streeting is considered to be on the right of the Labour Party, he said in 2022 he objected to being labelled a Blairite: "There's no future for the Labour party if it's locked in a battle between two competing visions of the past. I don't like being pigeonholed." Following his election, Streeting was described as a "long-time critic" of Jeremy Corbyn, who was leader of the Labour Party from 2015 until 2020. He accused Corbyn of a "flat-footed and lackadaisical attitude" to tackling antisemitism, which was "simply unacceptable". Streeting was among the 70 per cent of Labour MPs who nominated Owen Smith in the 2016 party leadership election. In 2022, Streeting said, "I always thought that Jeremy Corbyn was unelectable and there was a fundamental moral objection to where he was on anti-Semitism."

Streeting is pro-devolution, supporting the idea of providing local authorities with greater control over public policy.

European Union and immigration
Streeting campaigned in favour of the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union (EU) in the run-up to the 2016 EU membership referendum. In 2018, he stated that a hard Brexit would address voters' concerns regarding sovereignty and migration but would provoke significant economic harm. Streeting appeared in The Sun and tweeted a link to the article saying he would be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". On immigration, in 2018, Streeting said: "I regularly make the point that we need better education and training for our own people, but we should be honest with our country that we also rely on attracting people from overseas, particularly with our ageing population and shrinking working age population."

NHS
On health, in December 2021, in response to growing waiting times in the National Health Service (NHS), Streeting said the way to reduce waiting times was better pay and conditions, while keeping a check on the six figure salaries of managers and management consultants. Following a visit to Israel in May 2022, Streeting suggested that the UK should embrace new technologies in the health sector that are commonplace in Israel to improve outcomes. In January 2022, Streeting said that he supported the use of private providers in the NHS to cut waiting lists. In June 2023, Streeting said that the NHS requires three big shifts: "from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."

LGBT rights
Streeting has also strongly criticised those campaigning against same-sex education in schools. When asked if transgender women can be women on a Talkradio interview show, he was applauded by Julia Hartley-Brewer for his response, stating: "Men have penises, women have vaginas; here ends my biology lesson."

In January 2024, he voiced his support for putting transgender hospital patients in their own, separate, ward. In the months leading up to the 2024 general election, Streeting also faced criticism from the LGBT community for saying that he regrets once saying that "trans women are women, trans men are men". He has also said it's wrong to claim that gender-critical feminists are "bigoted", and apologised to Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield, who has become known for her contentious views on trans people. After the 2024 general election, Streeting defended the previous Conservative Government's ban on private prescriptions of puberty blockers.

Personal life
Streeting lives in Redbridge, London, with Joe Dancey, a communications and public affairs adviser, and in May 2022 they were engaged to be married. In October 2023, Dancey was selected as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Stockton West at the 2024 general election but he did not win the seat and was the only unsuccessful Labour candidate in the whole of the North East of England. Streeting, who is a practising Anglican, has said his faith is "about compassion, not walking by on the other side", and that it caused serious problems when it came to his sexuality: "My faith was a really big obstacle to accepting myself ... I spent many years choosing not to be gay." He has been engaged to Joe Dancey since 2013.

In May 2021, Streeting revealed he had been diagnosed with kidney cancer and would be stepping back from frontline politics while he received treatment for it. He had received a phone call from his urologist informing him that tests, initially for kidney stones, revealed he had kidney cancer. He was on a campaign visit at the time. However, because the cancer was noticed early, his prognosis was good even though he needed surgery to remove the kidney. On 27 July 2021, Streeting announced that he had been declared cancer-free, following an operation to remove one of his kidneys.

Streeting published his memoir One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry-Up, in June 2023. The book received generally positive reviews. Rachel Cooke of The Observer described the book as "both a little bit boring and unexpectedly fascinating". Jason Cowley of The Sunday Times praised Streeting for telling "his story with emotional intelligence. He is never self-aggrandising, yet part of his appeal is his naked ambition; in a recent interview he was unequivocal about wanting one day to be prime minister. This is the self-made East End boy speaking." Robert Colls of Literary Review was more critical, writing that "There are few ideas here that might take us deeper or wider. Streeting is a self-confessed Christian geek who never stopped reading and who wore his school merit badges with pride, but I was left searching for the intellect on which all his achievements were built. Maybe it will be in the next book."

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