About Peter Hain
Peter Gerald Hain, Baron Hain, (born 16 February 1950) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2005 to 2007, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2007 to 2008 and twice as Secretary of State for Wales from 2002 to 2008 and from 2009 to 2010. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Neath between 1991 and 2015. Born in Kenya Colony to South African parents, Hain came to the United Kingdom from South Africa as a teenager and was a noted anti-fascist and anti-apartheid campaigner in the 1970s, and was convicted of criminal conspiracy for leading direct action events. Elected to Parliament at a 1991 by-election, he initially served in Tony Blair's government as a junior minister in the Wales Office, Foreign Office and Department of Trade and Industry. Promoted to the Cabinet as Welsh Secretary in 2002, he served concurrently as Leader of the House of Commons from 2003 to 2005 and Northern Ireland Secretary from 2005 to 2007. Hain stood for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in the 2007 deputy leadership election, coming fifth out of six candidates. He was promoted to Work and Pensions Secretary by new leader Gordon Brown, while remaining Welsh Secretary. His failure to declare donations during the deputy leadership contest led to his resignation from both roles in 2008. He later returned to the Cabinet from 2009 to 2010 as Welsh Secretary. After Labour was defeated at the 2010 general election, Hain was Shadow Welsh Secretary in the Miliband shadow cabinet from 2010 until 2012, when he announced his retirement from frontline politics. In June 2014 he announced that he would stand down as MP for Neath at the 2015 general election and was subsequently nominated for a life peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours. Phil Taylor, the first campaign manager, said that Hain insisted on knowing who had donated and that it was legal. Hain was the first person to resign from Gordon Brown's cabinet. He was created a life peer taking the title Baron Hain, of Neath in the County of West Glamorgan, on 22 October 2015. When Hain was 19, he became chairman of the Stop The '70 Tour campaign which disrupted tours by the South African rugby union and cricket teams in 1969 and 1970.
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