1. Claire Margaret Ward was born on 9 May 1972 and is a British Labour Party politician who was elected Mayor of the East Midlands in May 2024.
23 Facts About Claire Ward
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Claire Ward was born in North Shields, Northumberland, the daughter of Frank and Cathy Claire Ward.
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Claire Ward was brought up in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, where she attended the Loreto College, an all-girls Roman Catholic school in St Albans, and studied at the newly created University of Hertfordshire, graduating with a LLB in 1993.
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Claire Ward then completed an MA on Britain and the European Union at Brunel University, before qualifying as a solicitor at the College of Law in London.
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Claire Ward joined the Labour Party, the Co-operative Party and the Transport and General Workers' Union at the age of fifteen, becoming an active member of Young Labour.
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Claire Ward was elected as a councillor for Elstree and Borehamwood Town Council in 1994, where she served as Mayor from 1996 to 1997.
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Claire Ward stepped down from the Labour Party NEC in 1995 upon her selection as the party's candidate for Watford.
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Claire Ward became the MP for Watford at the 1997 general election, succeeding the former Conservative Party Deputy Chief Whip Tristan Garel-Jones, who had retired, and defeating Conservative candidate Robert Gordon by 5,792 votes.
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Claire Ward was the youngest female MP elected in the 2001 election.
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The increasing dominance of local politics in Watford Borough council by the Liberal Democrats, including the election of a Liberal Democrat mayor, led to speculation that Claire Ward would find re-election extremely difficult; Claire Ward even accused staff from the council of harassment during the 2005 general election campaign.
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Claire Ward was promoted again in October 2008 to Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, the lowest of the senior Whips.
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Claire Ward was one of 98 MPs who voted in favour of legislation which would have kept MPs' expense details secret.
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Claire Ward lost her seat at the 2010 general election, when she finished in third place with 14,750 votes, behind the successful Conservative Party candidate Richard Harrington and the Liberal Democrat Sal Brinton.
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In 2008, on a free vote, Claire Ward voted against her party's majority position on abortion, where she unsuccessfully voted in several separate bills for a reduction in the time when an abortion can be carried out from 24 weeks.
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From June 2011 until its closure in March 2015, Claire Ward was executive director of the Independent Pharmacy Federation.
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Claire Ward resigned this role in April 2017 as part of the Pharmacy Voice's closure.
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Claire Ward was Chief Executive of the Institute for Collaborative Working from January 2019 to January 2022.
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Claire Ward continues roles in the pharmacy sector with the Pharmacists Defence Association and as Chair of Sigma Pharmaceuticals Annual Conference.
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Claire Ward has been a Governor of the University of Hertfordshire since September 2018.
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Claire Ward became a Non Executive Director of Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in May 2013 and was appointed chair in October 2021.
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Claire Ward subsequently announced that she would stand down as chair of the Hospitals Trust.
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When she was aged 28, Claire Ward met John Simpson, a plumber four years older than her, with his own business in Wembley, at a birthday party in Watford.
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Claire Ward married in 2003, and her first child, in 2005, was stillborn.