Estelle Morris, Baroness Morris of Yardley, Personal Computer is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley from 1992 to 2005, and served briefly in the Cabinet as Education Secretary.
Background
Morris was born in Manchester into a political family. Her uncle, Alf Morris, was Labour Member of Parliament for Manchester Wythenshawe (1964-1997) and her father, Charles, was Labour Member of Parliament for Manchester Openshaw (1963-1983) and a Post Office union official who married Pauline Dunn.
Education
She attended Rack House primary school in Wythenshawe and Whalley Range High School in Whalley Range where she failed her English and French A-levels. She is a graduate of the Coventry College of Education, where she gained a Bachelor of Education in 1974.
Career
Morris was elected to Parliament in 1992 for Birmingham Yardley, gaining the seat from the Conservatives with only a wafer-thin majority of 162. She became a minister in the Department for Education and Employment in 1997 and was promoted to Secretary of State for Education and Skills in 2001. She was the first former comprehensive school teacher to have the position.
She suddenly resigned her post in October 2002, explaining that she did not feel up to the job.
She had made a commitment to the then Conservative Shadow Education Secretary, David Willetts to resign if the literacy and numeracy targets were not metropolitan In interviews following her resignation she stated that she had felt happier and more effective as a junior Education minister.
She rejoined the Government in 2003 as Minister for the Arts in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and caused further comment when she admitted that she did not know much about contemporary art On 13 May 2005 it was announced that she would be created a life peer, and she was conferred as Baroness Morris of Yardley, of Yardley in the County of West Midlands, on 14 June 2005.
In April 2005 she was appointed Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sunderland.
In May 2005, she was appointed chair of the Children’s Workforce Development Council. In September 2005, it was announced that she would succeed Lady Kennedy of The Shaws as President of the National Children"s Bureau. Since 2009 she has been chair of the Executive Group of the Institute for Effective Education at the University of New York
Morris is the Chair of the medical charity, the Hughes Syndrome Foundation.
Membership
51st United Kingdom Parliament. 52nd United Kingdom Parliament. 53rd United Kingdom Parliament]
She stepped down from the government and as a Member of Parliament at the 2005 general election.