10 Facts About Bill Rammell

William Ernest Rammell was born on 10 October 1959 and is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Harlow from 1997 until 2010, and served as a Minister of State in several departments from 2002.

Bill Rammell was chair of the university consortium MillionPlus from June to December 2019.

Bill Rammell joined Tony Blair's government in October 2002 as an assistant whip but was promoted two weeks later to be a spokesperson for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

In May 2005, Bill Rammell was made Minister of State for Higher Education.

Bill Rammell was strongly supportive of top-up fees, arguing in 2005 that without such fees it would be necessary to put "3p or 4p on the standard rate of tax".

In February 2008, Bill Rammell announced plans to create a national database of children's school records and exam results which would make up a publicly owned CV.

In October 2008, Bill Rammell returned to the Foreign Office as Minister of State, and in June 2009, was moved again to the Ministry of Defence as Minister of State for the Armed Forces.

Bill Rammell defended the Brown government's levels of spending on equipment in Afghanistan, following a soldier's death because of a lack of available helicopters.

In September 2009, Bill Rammell confirmed he had told Libya that the Prime Minister did not want to see convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who had been serving a life sentence, die in prison.

Bill Rammell had previously worked for Plymouth University as Deputy Vice-Chancellor with responsibility for student experience and internationalisation.