Career
He was first elected at the 2010 general election. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne to a World World War II veteran, Mearns was raised Catholic and educated at Street Mary"s Remote Control Primary School (Forest Hall) and Street Mary"s Remote Control Technical College (Newcastle). He worked for British Gas plc from 1974.
Mearns was elected to Parliament in 2010 with a majority of 12,549, in a Gateshead seat created by boundary changes.
Along with fellow new North Eastern MPs Ian Lavery and Grahame Morris, Mearns is perceived to be on the left-wing of the Labour party. He was one of 16 signatories of an open letter to Editor Miliband in January 2015 calling on the party to commit to oppose further austerity, take rail franchises back into public ownership and strengthen collective bargaining arrangements.
In Parliament he has served on the Education Select Committee and the Backbench Business Committee in the 2010-2015 Parliament. In March 2013, Mearns resigned as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Ivan Lewis in order to defy the Labour whip and vote against the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill which retroactively changed DWP rules relating to Workfare in the United Kingdom.
On 19 June 2015, he was elected as the Chairman of the Backbench Business Select Committee.
In September 2015, The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority named him among 26 current and former MPs who failed to settle sums of up to £500 last year in overclaimed expenses, forcing them to be written official In Mearns" case the amount was £10.