Jane Ellison
Ellison was born in Bradford, attending St. Joseph's Catholic College, Bradford, then a girls' grammar school. She studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St Hilda's College, Oxford. After university, she worked at the John Lewis Partnership, where she held many positions up until her election to the House of Commons some 23 years later. A former Barnet London Borough Councillor, she contested the 1996 Barnsley East by-election and the 2000 Tottenham by-election, in both cases finishing in third place, and contested Barnsley East and Mexborough in 1997 and Pendle in the 2005 general election. Labour retained the seat, although she almost halved the majority of sitting MP Gordon Prentice from 4,275 to 2,180. She was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Battersea in September 2006, following an open primary held at the Battersea Arts Centre. Ellison was elected at the 2010 general election, with a majority of 5,977. In Parliament, she served on the Backbench Business Committee and Work and Pensions Committee. Ellison was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health in October 2013. She described providing political direction to the National Health Service (NHS) as "a bit like being on a high wire without a net at times, it can be quite exciting" in a meeting with the Tory Reform Group in 2014. According to "The Observer", she also said: "I don't know how much any of you realise that with the Lansley act we pretty much gave away control of the NHS… we have some important strategic mechanisms but we don't really have day-to-day control", which was seized upon by critics as evidence that the government's NHS reforms had not succeeded. In January 2015, she announced the government was proposing introducing a ban on advertising on cigarette packaging before the next election, to some surprise amongst colleagues in the Conservative Party. In the 2017 general election, she lost her seat to Marsha De Cordova, who increased the Labour share of the vote by 9.1%. In October 2017 Ellison was appointed as Deputy Director-General for Corporate Operations at the World Health Organization. On 1 January 2020 she became the Executive Director for External Relations and Governance at WHO. Ellison lives in Balham with her partner John, and enjoys music and walking.
After politics
As of 2020, she is Executive Director for External Relations and Governance at the World Health Organization.