Stephen Timms

Stephen Timms is Member of Parliament for East Ham. In May 2005 he was appointed as Minister of State for Pensions Reform at the DWP. His ministerial responsibilities include Stakeholder Pensions, Private Pensions, The Financial Assistance Scheme, The Pensions Protection Fund, Age Discrimination (retirement), Pension Reform, State Pensions Provision including Pension Credit, Winter Fuel Payments/Age Related Payments, and Age Positive including Extending Working Lives.

Further responsibilities include The Pensions Regulator, The Pension Service, Regulatory Reform and E-Government.

In September 2004 he was appointed as Financial Secretary to the Treasury for the second time, and his responsibilities included banking, financial services, insurance and the Financial Services Authority; personal savings policy; corporate social responsibility and debt management policy.

Previously he has served at the Department of Trade and Industry as Minister of State for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services from June 2003 and as Minister of State for E-Commerce and Competitiveness from May 2002. Between June 2001 and May 2002 he was Minister of State for School Standards at the Department for Education and Skills. From July 1999 until June 2001 he was Financial Secretary at HM Treasury, and his responsibilities included growth and competition, Welfare to Work, environmental issues and science, research and development. From January 1999 he served as Minister of State at the Department of Social Security, and from July 1998 he was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Social Security.

From February 1998 he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to The Rt. Hon Mo Mowlam MP at the Northern Ireland Office and before that, from May 1997 he worked as Parliamentary Private Secretary to The Rt. Hon. Andrew Smith MP, Minister of State for Employment, at the Department for Education and Employment.
After studying mathematics with a senior scholarship at Cambridge University, Stephen Timms worked for 15 years in the computing and telecommunications industry, first for Logica and then for Ovum. He managed Ovum’s telecommunications reports business until his election.

He has lived in the East London borough of Newham since 1979. He was elected to the Council in 1984. He chaired the planning committee from 1987 to 1990 and was Council Leader from 1990 to 1994. He was elected as Labour MP for Newham North East in a by-election on 9 June 1994, and was re-elected to the new constituency of East Ham in May 1997. At the May 2005 General Election he was re-elected with a majority of 13,155.
He was born in 1955 and married Hui-Leng in July 1986. They have no children.

Stephen Timms was a member of the Treasury Select Committee from January 1996 and was secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party’s Treasury Committee, until the election. He was also a member of the Tax Law Review Committee of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Stephen Timms advised Labour’s information society policy forum in Opposition and was the honorary president of the Telecommunications Users Association and a member of the Council of the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee.
Apart from his Ministerial responsibilities Stephen Timms has concentrated on three main areas:· Regeneration in East London – Regeneration partnerships, Thames Gateway initiative, Stratford international station on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, health service funding.
· Christian socialism.
· Information Technology policy.