Albert Owen MP |
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Member of Parliament for Ynys Môn |
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Assumed office 7 June 2001 |
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Preceded by | Ieuan Wyn Jones |
Majority | 229 (0.7%) |
Personal details | |
Born |
Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey, Wales |
10 August 1959
Nationality | Welsh |
Political party | Welsh Labour |
Alma mater | University of York |
Albert Owen (born 10 August 1959) is a Welsh Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament (MP) for Ynys Môn. He took the seat in the 2001 election from Plaid Cymru with a margin of exactly eight hundred votes and retained the seat at the three subsequent general elections, though always with slim majorities. He is a member of the Parliamentary Welsh Affairs Select Committee, and vice-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Flag Group
Like most of Holyhead, his hometown, including the Labour MEP Glenys Kinnock, he attended the Holyhead County Comprehensive School. He left when he was sixteen for a career in the Merchant Navy, and was a seaman until 1992. In 1995, he became an advisor in the Citizens Advice Bureau, specialising in welfare rights, and from 1997 to 2001 he managed the J. E. O'Toole Centre in Holyhead – a centre dedicated to the welfare, education and leisure of unemployed workers in Holyhead. In 1999, he unsuccessfully stood for the Labour party in the Welsh Assembly elections. From the University of York he gained a BA in Politics in 1997.
Albert has rebelled against the Labour Party's political whip on certain occasions including notably:
He married Angela Margaret Magee. They have two daughters (born January 1985 and August 1986). He is a supporter of Everton Football Club. He said "I have a passion for football. I remember, as a young man in the 1970s, watching Wales play Northern Ireland at Goodison Park, my favourite football team’s stadium."