Ian Mearns
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Ian Mearns MP |
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Ian Mearns and Robin Hood tax at the G20
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Member of Parliament for Gateshead |
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Assumed office 6 May 2010 |
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| Majority | 14,784 (39.0%) |
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| Born |
21 April 1957 Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England, UK |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Labour |
James Ian Mearns (born 21 April 1957) is a British Labour Party politician who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gateshead. He was first elected at the 2010 general election.
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne to a World War II veteran, Mearns was raised Catholic and educated at St Mary's RC Primary School (Forest Hall) and St Mary's RC Technical College (Newcastle).
Mearns was elected to Parliament in 2010 with a majority of 12,549, in a Gateshead seat created by boundary changes. Along with fellow new North Eastern MPs Ian Lavery and Grahame Morris, Mearns is perceived to be on the left-wing of the Labour party. He was one of 16 signatories of an open letter to Ed Miliband in January 2015 calling on the party to commit to oppose further austerity, take rail franchises back into public ownership and strengthen collective bargaining arrangements.
In Parliament he has served on the Education Select Committee and the Backbench Business Committee in the 2010–2015 Parliament. He was a member of the bill committee for HS2, which he has criticised for treating residents of the north east and other regions not served by the line as "lesser citizens".
In March 2013, Mearns resigned as PPS to Ivan Lewis to defy the Labour whip and vote against the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill which retroactively changed DWP rules relating to Workfare in the United Kingdom.
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