Joan Ruddock

Who is Joan Ruddock?

Dame Joan Ruddock, DBE, MP is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Lewisham Deptford since 1987. Ruddock was Minister of State for Energy at the Department of Energy and Climate Change until 11 May 2010. She is standing down at the next election.

Ruddock was educated at Pontypool Girls grammar school and at Imperial College London. Prior to her election to Parliament, she was chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a UK pressure group; she resigned in 1985. Originally on the hard left of the Labour Party, she was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group but resigned in 1988 in protest at Tony Benn's decision to challenge Neil Kinnock for the leadership.

During the government of Tony Blair, she briefly served as Minister for Women. She returned to government when Gordon Brown appointed her Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at Defra in June 2007 with responsibility for biodiversity, climate change adaptation, waste and domestic forestry. In October 2008 she was transferred to the newly created Department of Energy and Climate Change, continuing in her previous role. In the June 2009 reshuffle she was promoted to Minister of State level, with responsibility for energy policy.