Peter Dowd

Peter Dowd MP
Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 October 2016
Preceded by	Rob Marris
Member of Parliament for Bootle
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 May 2015
Preceded by	Joe Benton
Personal details
Born	20 June 1957 Bootle, England
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	Hugh Baird College University of Liverpool Lancaster University

Peter Dowd (born 20 June 1957) is an English Labour Party politician. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bootle since May 2015.^[1]

Peter 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 then gained undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Liverpool and Lancaster Universities and other postgraduate qualifications.

Dowd has been in the Labour Party for over 30 years, his two great uncles where MPs Simon Mahon and Peter Mahon. 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.^[2]

References

1. "Bootle parliamentary constituency - Election 2015". BBC News. 1970-01-01. Retrieved 2015-12-17.
2. "Welfare cuts backed amid Labour revolt". BBC News. Retrieved 2015-12-17.