Background
Owen Smith was born in Morecambe, England in 1970.
Owen Smith was born in Morecambe, England in 1970.
University of Sussex.
He previously worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation as a radio producer. Smith joined the Labour Party at the age of 16, later studying History and French at the University of Sussex. He worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation as a radio producer for 10 years, working on a variety of programmes in both Wales and London, including Today for British Broadcasting Corporation Radio Four and Dragon"s Eye for British Broadcasting Corporation Wales.
In 2002 he became a special adviser for Paul Murphy, then the Secretary of State for Wales.
He later followed Murphy to the Northern Ireland Office. After his election to Parliament in 2010 he joined the Welsh Affairs Select Committee and was appointed a shadow minister for Wales.
In 2012 he was promoted to the Editor Miliband"s Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, after Peter Hain stepped down. In September 2012 he described Prime Minister David Cameron"s first government reshuffle as an "highly unusual and unsatisfactory state of affairs
lieutenant looks to me as though Wales has only been considered at the fag-end of David Cameron"s reshuffle and when they did look at it they found they"d run out of money for a full-time junior minister at the Wales Office, having almost certainly reached the ceiling allowed under the Ministerial and other Salaries Acting.
lieutenant"s unheard of to have a whip also acting as a minister in a department."
He described Conservative plans to devolve powers over income tax to the Welsh Assembly as "a trap". Smith had been named as a potential contender in the 2015 Labour leadership election to replace Editor Miliband. Ultimately, nothing came of this.
On 14 September 2015, he was named as the new Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party.
On 9 January 2016, he voiced an interest in eventually standing for Labour Leadership, saying it would be an "incredible honour and privilege" to do the job.
Welsh Labour, Labour Party.
55th United Kingdom Parliament. 56th United Kingdom Parliament.