Catherine McKinnell

Catherine McKinnell (born 8 June 1976) has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle upon Tyne North since the 2010 general election She has held several Shadow Cabinet positions, including Shadow Attorney General.

Parliamentary career
McKinnell was first elected to Parliament at the United Kingdom general election, 2010 general election for Newcastle upon Tyne North, one of 19 solicitors newly elected to the House of Commons. She was elected with 40.8% of the vote, and a majority of 3,414 over her rival. In October 2010, the Labour Leader [[Edward Miliband appointed her to the role of Shadow Solicitor General, where she was responsible for the party's response to the News International phone hacking scandal.

In October 2011, during a shadow ministerial reshuffle, Catherine McKinnell was made shadow children's minister, shadowing Tim Loughton. In that post she criticised the adoption process as too slow and called for immediate improvements in support for social workers and family courts to speed up the process. She also accused the government of doing too little to help children for whom adoption was not suitable and following this, requested a guarantee that the government would give priority to placing children in "happy homes".

In 2012, after the resignation of Peter Hain, she was then moved to become Shadow Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, replacing Owen Smith.

She was made Shadow Attorney General in September 2015 by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but resigned in January 2016.