Yvette Cooper (born 20 March 1969) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since July 2026. She previously served as Foreign Secretary from September 2025 to July 2026 and as Home Secretary from 2024 to 2025. A member of the Labour Party, Cooper has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, formerly Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, since 1997. She previously held various ministerial positions under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from 1999 to 2010, lastly as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2009 to 2010.
Born in Inverness, Cooper is the daughter of trade union leader Tony Cooper. She first attended Eggar's School and was later educated at Alton College. She studied philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at Balliol College, Oxford and then won a Kennedy Scholarship in 1991 to study at Harvard University. She completed her postgraduate studies with an MSc degree in economics at the London School of Economics. Cooper began her career economic policy researcher for Shadow Chancellor John Smith, later working for Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton and shadow cabinet minister Harriet Harman. She later worked for the Centre for Economic Performance, before she became the chief economics correspondent of The Independent in 1995. Having been elected to Parliament at the 1997 general election, Cooper was a Parliamentary under-secretary of state in three departments under Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1999 to 2005. She was promoted to Minister of State for Housing and Planning in 2005, and was invited to attend Cabinet in the role when Gordon Brown was appointed prime minister in 2007.
Cooper continued to serve in Brown's Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2008 to 2009 and then as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2009 to 2010. Following Labour's defeat at the 2010 general election, she served in Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Foreign Secretary from 2010 to 2011. In 2011, her husband Ed Balls was promoted to Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer; she replaced Balls as shadow home secretary and served until Labour lost the 2015 general election. In May 2015, Cooper announced she would run to be Leader of the Labour Party in the leadership election following the resignation of Miliband. She came third with 17.0% of the vote in the first round, losing to Jeremy Corbyn. She subsequently resigned as Shadow Home Secretary in September 2015. Cooper was the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee from 2016 to 2021. As a backbencher, she repeatedly sought to extend Article 50 to delay Brexit. After six years on the backbenches, Cooper returned as shadow home secretary under Keir Starmer in a November 2021 shadow cabinet reshuffle.
Following Labour's victory in the 2024 general election, Cooper returned to government and was appointed home secretary by Starmer in his ministry. She faced her first major domestic event, the riots across the country following the Southport stabbing, three weeks into her tenure. As home secretary, she oversaw the establishment of the Border Security Command and the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. Cooper was later appointed Foreign Secretary during the 2025 cabinet reshuffle, becoming the first woman to have served in both roles. During her tenure as foreign secretary, the government formally recognised the state of Palestine and refused to participate in the initial offensive strikes during the 2026 Iran war. Cooper endorsed Andy Burnham in the 2026 leadership election and was subsequently appointed Health Secretary in the Burnham ministry.
Yvette Cooper was born on 20 March 1969 in Inverness, Scotland. Her father is Tony Cooper, former general secretary of the Prospect trade union, a former non-executive director of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and a former chairman of the British Nuclear Industry Forum. He was also a government adviser on the Energy Advisory Panel. Her mother, June, was a maths teacher.
She was educated at Eggar's School, a comprehensive school in Holybourne, and Alton College, both in Alton, Hampshire. She read philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at Balliol College, Oxford, and graduated with a first-class honours BA degree. She won a Kennedy Scholarship in 1991 to study at Harvard University, and completed her postgraduate studies with an MSc degree in economics at the London School of Economics.
Cooper began her career as an economic policy researcher for Shadow Chancellor John Smith in 1990 before working in Arkansas for Bill Clinton, nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States, in 1992. Later that year, she became a policy adviser to the then Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Harriet Harman.
At the age of 24, Cooper developed chronic fatigue syndrome, from which she took a year to recover. In 1994, she moved to become a research associate at the Centre for Economic Performance. In 1995, she became the chief economics correspondent of The Independent, remaining with the newspaper until her election to the House of Commons in 1997.
Cooper was selected as the Labour candidate to contest Pontefract and Castleford at the 1997 general election. She was elected as MP for Pontefract and Castleford with 75.7% of the vote and a majority of 25,725. Cooper made her maiden speech in the Commons on 2 July 1997, speaking about her constituency's struggle with unemployment. She served for two years on the Education and Employment Select Committee.
Blair and Brown government (1999–2010)
In 1999, she was promoted as Parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Department of Health. As a health minister, Cooper helped implement the Sure Start programme. In this post, she was also the first British government minister in history to take maternity leave.
At the 2001 general election, Cooper was re-elected as MP for Pontefract and Castleford with a decreased vote share of 69.7% and a decreased majority of 16,378.
In 2003, she became Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regeneration in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister with the responsibility of coalfield regeneration. Following the 2005 general election she was promoted to Minister, as Minister of State for Housing and Planning based in the Department for Communities and Local Government from 2006.
Cooper was again re-elected at the 2005 general election with a decreased vote share of 63.7% and a decreased majority of 15,246.
After Gordon Brown became prime minister, Cooper was invited to attend cabinet meetings as Housing Minister. Shortly after taking the job, she was required to introduce the Home Information Pack (HIPs) scheme. According to Conservative columnist Matthew Parris, Cooper conceived HIPs, but avoided direct criticism for its problems because of her connection with Brown. In July 2007, Cooper announced in the House of Commons that "unless we act now, by 2026 first-time buyers will find average house prices are ten times their salary. That could lead to real social inequality and injustice. Every part of the country needs more affordable homes – in the North and the South, in urban and rural communities".
In 2008, Cooper became the first woman to serve as Chief Secretary to the Treasury where she was involved with taking Northern Rock into public ownership. As her husband, Ed Balls, was already a cabinet minister, her promotion meant that the two became the first married couple ever to sit in the cabinet together.
In 2009, Cooper was appointed as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and took over leading on the Welfare Reform Act 2009 which included measures to extend the use of benefit sanctions to force unemployed people to seek work. Many campaigners – including the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) – urged Cooper to rethink Labour's approach, arguing instead that increasing support for job seekers was vital to eradicating child poverty.
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph reported that Cooper had changed the designation of her second home twice in two years. Following a referral to the parliamentary standards watchdog, Cooper and her husband Ed Balls were exonerated by John Lyon, the Standards Commissioner. He said they had paid capital gains tax on their homes and were not motivated by profit. Cooper and Balls bought a four-bedroom house in Stoke Newington, North London, and registered this as their second home (rather than their home in Castleford, West Yorkshire); this qualified them for up to £44,000 a year to subsidise a reported £438,000 mortgage under the Commons Additional Costs Allowance, of which they claimed £24,400. An investigation in MPs' expenses by Sir Thomas Legg found that Cooper and her husband had both received overpayments of £1,363 in relation to their mortgage. He ordered them to repay the money.