Famous For: being a key Labour politician in the cabinets of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and being closely involved with the anti-apartheid cause.
Biography:
Born in Nairobi, Peter Hain rose to a high level in the world of British politics.
He served as the Leader of the House of Commons under Tony Blair and as Secretary of State for Wales and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions under Gordon Brown.
After failing to declare donations to his campaign for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party in 2008 he resigned from ministerial office saying he wanted to "clear his name". He was the first minister to resign under Gordon Brown's premiership.
He went on to say that, "I made a mistake but it was an innocent mistake."
Peter Hain was brought up in South Africa, with his parents Adelaine Florence Hain and Walter Vannet Hain (an architect) heavily involved in the opposition to apartheid. Both parents were jailed for their beliefs.
The entire family left South Africa in April 1966 when it became almost impossible for his father to get any work, ultimately settling in Putney in London.
Peter is the eldest of four children - he has two younger sisters and a younger brother. He completed his secondary education, and went on to gain a first class honours degree in Economics and Political Science at Queen Mary College, London. This was followed by a Master of Philosophy at Sussex University.
University life raised his awareness of politics and he became a leader of anti-apartheid activities. In 1969 he was part of a group which disrupted the Springboks rugby tour - this led to the halting of the South African cricket tour of Britain. In 1971 he became Chairman of the Young Liberals.
In 1972 a letter bomb was sent to him, but failed to explode.
In 1974 he was arrested and charged with robbing a branch of Barclays Bank near his home in Putney, south London.
He was acquitted at a subsequent Old Bailey trial, and later evidence emerged suggesting that the South African security services had attempted to frame him by employing a "double" to carry out the robbery.
He went on to become a member of the Labour Party in 1977. At the time he was working for the Union of Communications Officers as a researcher.
He had not forgotten his South African upbringing however, and in 1977 was a founding member of the Anti-Nazi League.
In April 1991, he was elected as the Labour MP for Neath, a role that he has held through all subsequent General Elections. In the 2001 election he polled 60.7% of the votes in the constituency, though this was down to 52.6% in 2005, a reduction of 8.1%.
During the 1990's he played a key role in the campaign for the Welsh Assembly referendum. When Labour won the General Election in May 1997 he was made a Minister in the Welsh Office.
In 2001, he was appointed to the Cabinet for the first time, replacing Paul Murphy as the Welsh Secretary of State. As a result of the reshuffle in June 2003, he was also given the role of Leader of The House of Commons. Additionally he is one of the government's chief negotiators on the controversial European constitution.
Following Labour's success - though with a substantially reduced majority - in the 2005 General Election, a Cabinet re-shuffle saw him given the role of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in addition to keeping his Welsh Secretary post.
In June 2007 he was appointed as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in addition to retaining responsibility for Wales.
In 2008 he resigned his position as Work and Pensions secretary, after the Electoral Commission referred the failure to report donations to the police. He said that he had resigned because he wanted to "clear his name".
Peter Hain lives in Resolven in the Neath Valley. He married his first wife Patricia Western in 1975, and they had two sons. In June 2003 he married his second wife Elizabeth Haywood in Neath Registry Office.
