Chris Bryant born 11 January 1962Christopher John Bryant is a British politician and is the Labour Member of Parliament for Rhondda, which he has held since 2001.
Chris Bryant was born in Cardiff to English parents. He was educated at Cheltenham College, and Mansfield College, Oxford where he received a BA degree in English in 1983 and the MA (Oxon). He then trained for the priesthood in the Church of England at Ripon College, Cuddesdon in Oxfordshire, where he obtained a further degree in theology. Although initially a member of the Conservative Party, and an elected office-holder in the Oxford University Conservative Association, OUCA, he joined the Labour Party in 1986 after leaving Oxford. From 1986 he served as a Curate at the Church of All Saints, High Wycombe and from 1989, as a Youth Chaplain in Peterborough.
In 1991 Bryant made a radical career move and began work as Agent to Holborn and St Pancras Constituency Labour Party, where he helped Frank Dobson hold his seat in the 1992 general election. From 1993 he was Local Government officer for the Labour Party; he lived in Hackney and was elected to Hackney Borough Council in 1993, serving until 1998. Also in 1993, he became the Chairman of the Christian Socialist Movement. He is also a member of the Labour Friends of Israel lobby group. From 1994 to 1996 he was London manager of the charity Common Purpose.
In 1996 he became a full time author, writing biographies of Stafford Cripps and Glenda Jackson. He was Labour candidate for Wycombe in the 1997 general election, and Head of European Affairs for the BBC from 1998.
His selection for the rock-solid Labour seat of Rhondda in South Wales in 2000 surprised many people given Bryant's background in the Church of England and former membership of the Conservative Party. He retained the seat comfortably with a 16,047 majority, one of the biggest in the country, although there was a swing to Plaid Cymru compared with the 1997 general election.
Bryant is a Christian Socialist, a member of the Co-operative Party (an organisation in electoral agreement to the Labour Party of which he is also a member), the Fabian Society, Amnesty International and the Trade Union Amicus. He is a strong supporter of British membership of the European Union, opposed to legalisation of drugs, strongly against fox hunting and in favour of an elected House of Lords.
Between the 2005 General Election and June 2006, he was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Charlie Falconer.
On 5 September 2006 he and Siôn Simon co-ordinated a letter which was signed by 15 Labour backbenchers calling for Tony Blair's immediate resignation.
Bryant is openly gay, but he was ridiculed in the press when he was discovered to have a Gaydar profile featuring pictures of him wearing only underpants, whilst an MP. In an interview with Attitiude magazine he later described the incident as 'very, very, very, very unpleasant ... I didn’t sleep much for about three months.'He later appeared looking very buff in swimming trunks at a parlimanetary swimming fundraiser.
Chris Bryant was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Rt Hon Harriet Harman and was been deputy Leader of the House of Commons. This was followed by another move in the June 2009 reshuffle, when he moved to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In October 2009, he was appointed Minister of State for Europe. He is presently Shadow Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform.
Chris Bryant claimed over £92,000 in expenses over the five years leading up to the 2009 scandal over MPs' expenses. During that time he flipped his second-home expenses twice, claimed mortgage interest expenses that started at £7,800 per year before rising (after flipping) to £12,000 per year. He also claimed £6,400 in stamp duty and other fees on his most recent purchase, and £6,000 per year in service charges. A claim that he made for £58,493.26, almost three times the annual maximum, in 2004, was disallowed.
On 9 September 2010 Bryant was interviewed by Kay Burley of Sky News, regarding developments in the News of the World phone hacking affair, when she interrupted him with the words, "No, no, no, you can't say that, sir... No, no, no, no, I have to interrupt you, do you have evidence for that?... Pretty strong claim if you don't!" When Bryant responded that the evidence for his statement was clearly included in the parliamentary debate that Burley was actually covering in that section of the programme, she replied, "So you are in a position to have listened to the debate and read the report and as a result you are content to say that on telly?" Bryant responded, "I have just said that. You seem to be a bit dim, if you don't mind me saying so."
In early 2010 Bryant 'married' his partner Jared Cranney in the first civil partnership to be held in the Houses of Parliament.