The Regional Monitor

Although there are a number of ministers past and present in Yorkshire and Humber, there is also a fair share of backbench MPs making names for themselves.

A former adviser to chancellor Gordon Brown, Normanton MP Ed Balls is among the rising stars on the backbenches. His constituency neighbours that of his wife, Pontefract and Castleford MP and housing minister Yvette Cooper, also tipped for a successful political career, alongside fellow Yorkshire ministers including Caroline Flint (health), Meg Munn (women’s issues) and John Healey (Treasury). Ed Miliband, who also worked at the Treasury and whose brother David sits around the cabinet table, now holds the Doncaster North constituency.

But political careers are not confined to the frontbenches: home affairs select committee member Shahid Malik has been rightly praised for his response to the London bombings, particularly after it emerged that one of the perpetrators resided in his Dewsbury constituency. He was also a model of restraint in his reaction to the publication of controversial cartoons in Denmark depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Alongside the new MPs in Yorkshire there are also some familiar faces. Hull is represented in Parliament by deputy prime minister John Prescott and trade secretary Alan Johnson; Leeds MP Hilary Benn serves in the cabinet as international development secretary, and environment minister Elliot Morley serves as Labour MP for Scunthorpe.

There are also those whose political careers have peaked: David Blunkett, who resigned as home secretary after claims he requested that the visa application of his former lover’s nanny be dealt with “slightly quicker”, and then as work and pensions secretary after it was revealed he broke the ministerial code of conduct over paid work taken between his Cabinet roles. And Denis Macshane was Europe minister until after the 2005 general election.

Though the Labour Party has the highest number of MPs in Yorkshire and the Humber, the region also boasts a significant number of prominent Conservatives. Haltemprice and Howden MP David Davis was considered a safe bet to win the party’s leadership contest at its start. But despite leading in the first ballot of MPs, when ballot papers were returned by party members across the country, David Cameron won with 134,446 votes to 64,398. Davis has continued to serve on the frontbenches as shadow home secretary.

But Tory leadership ambitions from Yorkshire didn’t start with Davis: Richmond MP William Hague led the party between 1997 and 2001 and, after a period on the backbenches, has returned as shadow foreign secretary, where he faces a considerable challenge taking Tory MEPs out of the European People’s Party. Elsewhere, chairman of the Commons public accounts committee Edward Leigh represents Gainsborough; former agriculture minister Douglas Hogg represents Sleaford and North Hykeham; and former shadow environment secretary David Curry holds the Skipton and Ripon constituency.

But Liberal Democrats are also making their mark on Yorkshire and the Humber. Nick Clegg, who replaced Richard Allan as MP for Sheffield Hallam, is seen as a future leadership contender, while Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Phil Willis chairs the science and technology select committee, and Greg Mulholland, MP for Leeds North West, speaks in the Commons on international development issues and serves on the work and pensions select committee.

From the rising stars to the frontbenchers of yesteryear, MPs of Yorkshire and the Humber offer an insight into the paths a career at Westminster can take.