Yvette Cooper

Yvette Cooper (born 20 March 1969) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since July 2026. She previously served as Foreign Secretary from September 2025 to July 2026 and as Home Secretary from 2024 to 2025. A member of the Labour Party, Cooper has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, formerly Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, since 1997. She previously held various ministerial positions under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from 1999 to 2010, lastly as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2009 to 2010. Born in Inverness, Cooper is the daughter of trade union leader Tony Cooper. She first attended Eggar's School and was later educated at Alton College. She studied philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at Balliol College, Oxford and then won a Kennedy Scholarship in 1991 to study at Harvard University. She completed her postgraduate studies with an MSc degree in economics at the London School of Economics. Cooper began her career economic policy researcher for Shadow Chancellor John Smith, later working for Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton and shadow cabinet minister Harriet Harman. She later worked for the Centre for Economic Performance, before she became the chief economics correspondent of The Independent in 1995. Having been elected to Parliament at the 1997 general election, Cooper was a Parliamentary under-secretary of state in three departments under Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1999 to 2005. She was promoted to Minister of State for Housing and Planning in 2005, and was invited to attend Cabinet in the role when Gordon Brown was appointed prime minister in 2007. Cooper continued to serve in Brown's Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2008 to 2009 and then as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions...