James Fitzpatrick (born 4 April 1952) is a British politician and former firefighter who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1997 to 2019, for Poplar and Canning Town until 2010 and for Poplar and Limehouse until his retirement. He is a member of the Labour Party.
Fitzpatrick served as Minister of State for Farming and the Environment at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs during the Brown ministry. In June 2019, he announced that he would not seek re-election to Parliament.
Contents
Early life
Fitzpatrick was born at Glasgow, Scotland, and educated locally at the Holyrood R.C. Secondary School in Crosshill. From 1970, he was a trainee with Tytrak in Glasgow, before moving to London in 1973 to become a driver with Mintex. In 1974, he joined the London Fire Brigade as a firefighter, being decorated with the Fire Brigade Long Service and Good Conduct Medal in 1994. He left the fire service when he was elected to the House of Commons in 1997.
Fitzpatrick was elected as Chairman of the Barking Constituency Labour Party, and served as Chairman of the Greater London Labour Party for seven years.
Parliamentary career
Member of Parliament
Fitzpatrick was selected as the Labour candidate over two sitting MPs, Mildred Gordon and Nigel Spearing.
He was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for the newly-created seat of Poplar and Canning Town in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets at the 1997 general election with a majority of 18,915. He made his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 17 June 1997.
Fitzpatrick was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Alan Milburn in 1999, until Milburn became the Secretary of State for Health later in the same year. After the 2001 general election, Fitzpatrick was appointed to government by Tony Blair as an Assistant Government Whip, becoming a Lord Commissioner to the Treasury (Government Whip) in 2002. He was again promoted within the Whips Office in 2003 when he became the Vice-Chamberlain of HM's Household.
Fitzpatrick was re-elected in the 2005 general election, and was then appointed a junior minister in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, then John Prescott, with the role of Minister for London, a role he took with him on his subsequent move to the Department of Trade and Industry in May 2006. In 2007, he argued against a CWU strike saying it would harm their cause.
On 29 June 2007, he moved to become the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, with shipping, aviation and road safety amongst his responsibilities, and was replaced as Minister for London by Tessa Jowell.
In 2008, during the Christmas period, Fitzpatrick and his wife visited Bangladesh, touring the development projects supported by the Canary Wharf Group. The purpose of the trip was to re-visit the country since 1999, and see the regeneration projects that this group supports. During his visit, he visited the Football Academy in Dhaka, also to Jagannathpur and Sylhet, where many Bangladeshis in the UK originate from including many in his constituency. Fitzpatrick was promoted to Minister of Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the June 2009 reshuffle. He kept this role until Labour's defeat at the 2010 General Election.
Personal life and honours
Fitzpatrick married firstly in 1980 Jane Lowe (now divorced), having a son and a daughter.
He married secondly in 2003 Dr Sheila Hunter MBE.
Admitted as a Freeman of the City of London in 2011, Fitzpatrick was elected to the Court of Assistants of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights in 2017. A Younger Brother of Trinity House, Fitzpatrick is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society, and in October 2021 was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Tower Hamlets.