Stephen Timms

Stephen Creswell Timms (born 29 July 1955) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Ham since 1997. He has sat in Parliament since retaining the earlier Newham North East seat for his party at a 1994 byelection. Timms served in the government for several periods as the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, from 1999 to 2001, 2004 to 2005, and 2008 to 2010.

He was also in the Cabinet from 2006 to 2007 as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2006 to 2007. With a majority of 27,826 at the 2010 general election, Timms had the largest vote share of any sitting MP, gaining 70.4% of the local vote.

At the 2017 general election, Timms' majority increased to 40,000 votes, making his the safest seat in the UK, with 83.2% of the vote.

He returned to the backbenches in September 2015, after being offered a junior Treasury job by his party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Early life
Timms was born in Oldham, Lancashire, to Ronald James Timms, an engineer, and Margaret Joyce Timms, a teacher. He was educated at Farnborough Grammar School in Farnborough, Hampshire, and read mathematics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge where he gained a degree in mathematics in 1977 and an MPhil in operational research in 1978.

Before entering politics, Timms worked in the telecommunications industry for 15 years, first for Logica from 1978 to 1986, and then for Ovum from 1986 to 1994, where he worked as a manager responsible for producing reports on the future of telecommunications. He was elected as a councillor for the Little Ilford Ward on Newham London Borough Council in a by-election in 1984, and served as Leader of the Council from 1990 to 1994.

Member of Parliament
The Labour MP for Newham North East, Ron Leighton, died in February 1994. Timms was selected as the Labour candidate for the resulting by-election in June 1994. He won the seat with 75% of the votes.

For the next election, his constituency was merged with part of Newham South, and at the general election in May 1997 Timms was elected MP for the resulting new constituency of East Ham.

In government
Timms served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Andrew Smith from May 1997 to March 1998, and later to Mo Mowlam from March to July 1998.

In 1998, Timms was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Social Security, rising to Minister of State in that department the following year. He served as Minister of State for E-Commerce and Competitiveness, and Minister of State for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services, at the Department of Trade and Industry; Minister of State for School Standards at the Department for Education and Skills; Minister of State for Pensions at the Department for Work and Pensions; and served as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1999 to 2001, September 2004 to May 2005, and October 2008 to May 2010.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury
In May 2006, Timms was promoted to the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Chancellor's second-in-command with responsibility for department budget issues, a post in which he remained until 28 June 2007, when he was dropped from the cabinet by new Prime Minister Gordon Brown. It was later announced that he had been appointed Minister of State for Competitiveness at the newly created Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform
Following the government reshuffle on 24 January 2008—a result of the resignation of Peter Hain—Timms moved to the Department for Work and Pensions, and became Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform.

Financial Secretary to the Treasury
Tony McNulty replaced Timms on 3 October 2008, who returned to his former role as Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

In August 2009, Timms was given additional responsibility for Digital Britain. In September 2009, he announced plans for a tax of £6 per year to be levied on each phone account in the UK. At the time, this was broadly characterised as a stealth tax in the UK media. In April 2010, Timms' department made an embarrassing slip when a letter purporting to be from him mistakenly identified IP address as "intellectual property address". According to the accountants' magazine Accountancy Age, he was highly regarded by finance professionals despite such gaffes.

In opposition
Timms was appointed to the role of Shadow Minister for Employment after the election of Ed Miliband as party leader.

It was rumoured that Timms is one of three shadow ministers who threatened to resign from his front bench position if the Labour Party did not grant a free vote on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. Timms later abstained on the bill.

Murder attempt
On 14 May 2010, Timms was approached by 21-year-old female Islamist extremist Roshonara Choudhry, during a constituency surgery at the Beckton Globe Library in Kingsford Way, Beckton, East London. Choudhry stabbed Timms twice in the abdomen with a 15 cm (6-inch) kitchen knife, before being disarmed. She stated that she had been influenced by watching sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and that her attack was to punish Timms for voting for the Iraq War, and seek revenge for the Iraqi people.

He suffered "potentially life-threatening" wounds—lacerations to his liver and a perforation to his stomach. A police officer at the scene remarked that Timms "was extremely fortunate not to have been killed". Timms underwent emergency surgery at the Royal London Hospital, from which he was discharged on 19 May.

On 2 November, Choudhry was found guilty of Timms' attempted murder. She was subsequently given a life sentence, with a recommendation that she serve a minimum jail term of 15 years. After the court case, Timms said he was not bitter, but that forgiveness was not an issue until his attacker showed remorse. He has since sought the banning of incendiary material on popular internet sites "to protect other vulnerable young people from going down the same road." YouTube removed some videos of al-Awlaki within hours of the sentence.

Personal life
Timms is an evangelical Christian. He has lived in the London Borough of Newham since 1979, and has been married to Hui-Leng Lim since 1986.