Profile - Yvette Cooper - Its a tough job...

17 Jul 08
It's a tough job& but someone's got to be chief secretary to the Treasury. And who better than a long-standing minister with an economics background? Vivienne Russell meets her

18 July 2008

... but someone's got to be chief secretary to the Treasury. And who better than a long-standing minister with an economics background? Vivienne Russell meets her

Yvette Cooper bursts out laughing when I point out she joined the Treasury at an I search for an appropriate word interesting time. 'Yes, busy,' she smiles.

After almost ten years as a junior minister, Cooper was propelled into the front line in January after Peter Hain's resignation as work and pensions secretary triggered a minor Cabinet reshuffle. As housing minister, Cooper had attended Cabinet meetings but her promotion to chief secretary to the Treasury, following Andy Burnham's move to Culture, Media and Sport, gave her full Cabinet status for the first time.

Her arrival in the Cabinet also helped to improve both the gender balance and youthfulness of Gordon Brown's top team. She became the sixth woman in the Cabinet, and, at the age of 38 (she turned 39 in March) another member under 40.

Despite being thrust into a department struggling to get to grips with a global economic downturn, as well as one or two homegrown problems such as the nationalisation of Northern Rock and the fallout from the abolition of the 10p tax rate, she's clearly loving the job.

'The fascinating thing about the Treasury, especially the role of the chief secretary, is you get to look at all different kinds of policy areas, all kinds of departments' work,' she says.

'One minute you'll be having a conversation about health, the next thing a conversation about police, the next minute a conversation about support for local communities. Such a different mix of things, it just makes it fascinating. It's a really interesting job.'

It's surprising Cooper has only just found herself at the Treasury, given that the discipline of economics runs so strongly throughout her CV.

A graduate of the academically prestigious Balliol College, Oxford, where she studied politics, philosophy and economics, Cooper also has a masters in economics from the London School of Economics.

In her early, pre-Commons career, she worked as an economics researcher for the late Labour leader John Smith, then shadow chancellor, and subsequently as policy adviser to Harriet Harman, who shadowed the chief secretary's role. After a spell as a research associate with the LSE's Centre for Economic Performance, she moved into journalism in 1995, working as an economics columnist and leader writer for the Independent.

She speaks clearly and confidently about the global economic conditions that have conspired to create a 'difficult time' for the Treasury.

'We've got these two big world problems: rising oil prices and the credit crunch, as a result of some very unwise lending decisions by banks. We've now got serious lending problems across the world this year, as well as world inflationary pressures, and that is going to create problems for every country. 'Of course, that creates new challenges in terms of responding to that and we haven't had those kinds of challenges for many years. The key question is: how do you respond and how do you get through it?'

Government can help in two ways, she says by boosting household incomes with schemes such as the Winter Fuel Allowance, and by trying to get to the source of the problem.

'For example, what do we need to do to increase oil supply in the short term to deal with some of the pressures on oil prices,' she says.

'You have to look at such a range of different things, both internationally and very locally, in order to respond to what are difficult challenges.'

Cooper's youthful demeanour can make it easy to forget that she's actually one of the most experienced ministers in government. Elected as member for the safe Labour seat of Pontefract and Castleford in the 1997 landslide, she had just two years to cut her teeth on the backbenches before being given her first red box.

While her ministerial career has been long, it has been remarkably consistent, with comparatively few moves between departments. She served as a junior public health minister until 2002, and then did a year at the Lord Chancellor's Department before being shifted over to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, where she remained throughout its evolution into the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Always identified as a Brownite, Cooper was rewarded with the role of housing minister when Brown assumed the premiership in June last year, charged with taking forward the major priority of delivering more affordable housing.

One senses housing is still very much at the forefront of her mind. We meet in her office immediately after she has launched the third phase of the Treasury's efficiency programme (detailed in last week's Public Finance), and her experiences as a housing minister come up again and again as she talks over the benefits of the new programme.

'As a housing minister [I found that] the way in which the public sector manages property does vary substantially between one organisation or agency and another,' she says.

Property and land use is one area the new efficiency programme will scrutinise to see what further efficiencies can be squeezed out to bolster the public coffers. With civil servants describing Cooper as 'forthright' and 'focused', there is little chance of the pressure letting up.

She arrived from the DCLG with something of a reputation for questioning things, Treasury insiders say. 'She is challenging but in an interesting way,' says one. While some ministers are predictable and easy to anticipate, Cooper likes to work round a question, examining it from a different perspective, and to probe the quality of advice she's receiving from her civil servants. 'It's good when it works,' they add.

Unlike most ministers, Cooper's personal life is rather more than a footnote to her biography. She is, famously, married to Children, Schools and Families Secretary Ed Balls, the prime minister's former economic adviser and another Brown protégé. They represent neighbouring constituencies in West Yorkshire, and Cooper's promotion distinguished them as the first husband and wife to serve together as Cabinet ministers.

Being one half of such an influential couple seems not to faze her and, she claims, presents few professional difficulties.

'We've got very different jobs, working in very different areas,' she says. But with three young children to bring up (Cooper and Balls have two daughters and a son), childcare is one area that can prove tricky.

'We wouldn't survive without my mum,' she exclaims. 'Looking after the kids late at night when we've got late night votes, that can make things more complicated, but otherwise we just get on with the job.'

PFjul2008

Did you enjoy this article?

AddToAny

Top