Peter Dowd

Peter Christopher Dowd (born 20 June 1957) is a British Labour Party politician. He was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bootle in May 2015.

Early life
Dowd was born and raised in the heart of Bootle into a large working class Labour family with a long history of activism in the party. Educated at local primary and secondary schools and college, he gained undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Liverpool and Lancaster Universities and other postgraduate qualifications.

Political career
A Labour Party member for over 30 years, Dowd's great uncles, Simon and Peter Mahon, were Labour MPs. He was a Merseyside County Councillor from 1981-1986 for Bootle number 1 ward (Hawthorne) which is around the Hawthorne road area of Bootle and Derby park area. He became a Sefton Borough Councillor in 1991 when he replaced Joe Benton for Derby ward. He was a councillor for Derby ward from 1991 to 2003 before he moved to St Oswalds ward (Netherton and Marion Square). He was chair of Merseyside Fire authority in the 1990s. He was elected Sefton Labour group leader after the death of Dave Martin and was leader until 2015. He was Leader of Sefton Council from 2011 to 2015.

Dowd was one of 48 Labour MPs to vote against the second reading of the government's Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which included £12bn in welfare cuts, on 20 July 2015. In doing so they defied the party's leadership, which had ordered MPs to abstain.

In February 2017, he was appointed to the position of Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury.