Meg Hillier
MP
Chair of the Public Accounts Committee
Assumed office
18 June 2015
Preceded by Margaret Hodge
Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
In office
8 October 2010 – 7 October 2011
Leader Edward Miliband
Preceded by Edward Miliband
Succeeded by Caroline Flint
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Identity
In office
28 June 2007 – 12 May 2010
Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Preceded by Joan Ryan (Under-Secretary of State for Nationality, Citizenship and Immigration)
Succeeded by Damian Green (Minister of State for Immigration)
Member of Parliament
for Hackney South and Shoreditch
Assumed office
5 May 2005
Preceded by Brian Sedgemore
Majority 37,931 (68.5%)
Member of the London Assembly
for North East
In office
4 May 2000 – 10 June 2004
Preceded by Constituency established
Succeeded by Jennette Arnold
Mayor of Islington
In office
May 1998 – May 1999
Preceded by Rupert Perry
Succeeded by Jenny Sands
Islington Borough Councillor
for Sussex Ward
In office
5 May 1994 – 2 May 2002
Succeeded by Constituency abolished
Personal details
Born (1969-02-14) 14 February 1969 (age 55)
Website meghillier.com


Margaret Olivia Hillier (born 14 February 1969) was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney South and Shoreditch at the 2005 general election, and was a junior government minister (2007–10) and was succeeded by Caroline Flint as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the Labour Party October 2011 reshuffle.

Parliamentary career

In 2004, Hillier was selected as the Labour candidate to contest the Hackney South and Shoreditch through an all-women shortlist. She was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election following the retirement of the Labour MP Brian Sedgemore.

During the election campaign, Sedgemore resigned from Labour and joined the Liberal Democrats in protest at the attack on Iraq. Hillier retained the safe seat with a majority of more than 10,000 votes. She made her maiden speech on 24 May 2005, noting there were more men in the House of Commons that day than there had ever been women MPs.

She served as member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee for a year until she was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Ruth Kelly in 2006. In June 2007, she was appointed a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office.

In June 2015, Hillier was elected Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in succession to Margaret Hodge. She was, as a result, among the 100 most influential people in the NHS according to the Health Service Journal in 2016. As chair, she has been critical of the Troubled Families programme, saying that the PAC's conclusions on the programme were "far more serious" than "a slap on the wrist" for ministers.

Hillier has served Trustee of the War Memorials Trust since 2001.