47 Facts About Peter Hain

Peter Hain ran for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in the 2007 deputy leadership election, coming fifth out of six candidates.

Peter Hain was promoted to Work and Pensions Secretary by new leader Gordon Brown, while remaining Welsh Secretary.

Peter Hain later returned to the Cabinet from 2009 to 2010 as Welsh Secretary.

Peter Hain announced in June 2014 he would stand down as MP for Neath at the 2015 general election and was nominated for a life peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours.

Whilst his father was working temporarily there, Peter Hain was born in Nairobi in what was then Kenya Colony, but he moved to the Union of South Africa when his parents returned about a year later.

Peter Hain's father, later to become an architect, was born there on 29 December 1924.

When Peter Hain was 10, he was awoken in the early hours by police officers searching his bedroom for 'incriminating documents'.

At 15, Peter Hain spoke at the funeral of John Frederick Harris, an anti-apartheid activist who was hanged for murder for the bombing of the Johannesburg main railway station, injuring 23 people and killing an elderly woman, Mrs Ethyl Rhys.

Peter Hain was educated in South Africa at Hatfield Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School and in London at Emanuel School, a state school, later becoming a private fee-paying institution, then Queen Mary College, University of London, graduating with a first class bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science in 1973, and the University of Sussex, obtaining an MPhil.

In 1971 director John Goldschmidt produced a film for Granada's World in Action programme featuring Peter Hain debating "Apartheid in South Africa" at the Oxford Union.

In 1976 Peter Hain was tried for, and acquitted of, a 1975 bank theft, having been framed by the South African Bureau of State Security according to his 1987 book, A Putney Plot.

Peter Hain contested Putney in the 1983 and 1987 general elections but was defeated on both occasions by Conservative David Mellor.

Team members who travelled repeatedly to Iraq on behalf of Peter Hain variously included William Morris, Burhan Chalabi, and Nasser al-Khalifa.

Peter Hain voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, later when comparing it with other questions on the Labour Party's annual conference agenda, calling it a "fringe issue".

In 2001, Peter Hain moved briefly to the Department of Trade and Industry before returning to the Foreign Office as Minister for Europe, being sworn of the Privy Council the same year.

Peter Hain was vocal in advocating joint sovereignty of Gibraltar with Spain and was accused of deliberately misrepresenting the situation.

Peter Hain remains one of the most unpopular politicians ever to visit Gibraltar.

In November 2004 Peter Hain caused controversy among his political rivals when he claimed that "If we are tough on crime and on terrorism, as Labour is, then I think Britain will be safer under Labour".

On 6 May 2005, following the 2005 general election, Peter Hain was appointed as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland by Prime Minister Tony Blair, retaining his Welsh position.

Peter Hain was responsible for negotiating the settlement which brought former enemies Sinn Fein and the DUP into a power-sharing Northern Irish government from May 2007.

Peter Hain was a proponent of the "tough love" measures designed to force claimants, including the sick and disabled, back to work.

Peter Hain resigned from his post when the issue of donations made to his campaign funds were referred to the police.

Peter Hain set a level of compensation for the taxpayer funded Financial Assistance Scheme similar to that of the Industry funded Pension Protection Fund for those whose schemes had collapses before the establishment of the PPF.

In January 2007, Peter Hain gave an interview to the New Statesman in which he made his pitch for the Deputy Leadership and referred to the Bush administration as "the most right-wing American administration, if not ever, then in living memory" and argued that "the neo-con agenda for America has been rejected by the people and I hope that will be the case for the future".

Peter Hain was eliminated in the second round of the Deputy Leadership election, coming fifth out of the six candidates, with Harriet Harman being the successful candidate.

Peter Hain admitted "deeply regrettable administrative failings" but faced questioning on whether the oversight was due to changes in campaign manager possibly causing "chaos" during the campaign or the desire of some donors to remain private.

Phil Taylor, the first campaign manager, said that Peter Hain insisted on knowing who had donated and that it was legal.

Peter Hain cited a desire to "clear his name" as the reason for his resignation.

Peter Hain was the first person to resign from Gordon Brown's cabinet.

Peter Hain was replaced as Secretary of State for Wales by Paul Murphy, and as Secretary for Work and Pensions by James Purnell in a forced cabinet reshuffle.

Peter Hain returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales the following year.

Peter Hain was re-appointed Shadow Welsh Secretary in Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet after Miliband's election as leader in 2010.

Peter Hain was a supporter of the unsuccessful Alternative Vote system in the May 2011 referendum.

Peter Hain's remarks had previously been strongly criticised by the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Sir Declan Morgan though the decision to charge Peter Hain with "scandalising the court", using a law already obsolete in 1899 drew ridicule in Westminster and strong criticism from senior DUP ministers.

At a preliminary hearing before a Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice on 24 April 2012, Peter Hain's counsel suggested that the action had no basis in common law and was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The trial was intended to take place on 19 June 2012 but the case was dropped on 17 May 2012 after Peter Hain agreed to clarify comments to show he didn't question Girvan's motives or his handling of the judicial review.

In June 2014, Peter Hain announced he would stand down as the MP for Neath at the 2015 general election.

Peter Hain was nominated for a life peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours.

Peter Hain was created a life peer taking the title Baron Hain, of Neath in the County of West Glamorgan, on 22 October 2015.

Peter Hain is a member of Labour Friends of Israel.

Peter Hain remains a prominent supporter of Unite Against Fascism today and is vice-president of Action for Southern Africa.

Peter Hain is a remunerated adviser to the law firm acting for the alleged victims, and Green subsequently announced that, due to this conflict of interest, he would lodge a complaint with the House of Lords.

Peter Hain is a member of the Steering Committee of the Constitution Reform Group, a cross-party organisation chaired by Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury, which seeks a new constitutional settlement in the UK by way of a new Act of Union.

On 28 October 2015, Peter Hain was appointed to the Board of AIM listed fertiliser company, African Potash, as non-executive Director, but resigned in November 2017.

Peter Hain is Global and Governmental Adviser to Gordon Dadds PLC.

Peter Hain is a member of the Advisory Council for the College of Medicine, an alternative medicine lobbying organisation set up following the disbanding of Charles, Prince of Wales's Foundation for Integrated Health in the wake of a fraud investigation.

Peter Hain married his first wife Patricia Western in 1975, and they have two sons.