The Rt. Hon Stephen Timms is the Member of Parliament for East Ham.  Stephen Timms was appointed Financial Secretary to the Treasury in October 2008. He has strategic oversight of taxation as a whole, including overall responsibility for the Finance Bill, HM Revenue and Customs, and European and international tax issues.  Since June 2007, Stephen has also been the first ever Labour Party Vice Chair for Faith Groups, and is presently working with different faith communities across the country.

Prior to his current ministerial role, Mr Timms was appointed Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform at the Department for Work and Pensions.  His portfolio in this role included the labour market, welfare reform, Jobcentre Plus, and employment programmes such as the New Deal.

Stephen’s first ministerial appointment was in July 1998 when he was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the then Department for Social Security.  From January 1999 he served as Minister of State at the Department of Social Security and in July 1999 was appointed as Financial Secretary at HM Treasury. Between June 2001 and May 2002 he was Minister of State for School Standards at the Department for Education and Skills before serving at the Department of Trade and Industry as Minister of State for E-Commerce and Competitiveness from May 2002 and as Minister of State for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services from June 2003.  In September 2004, he was appointed as Financial Secretary to the Treasury for the second time before becoming the Minister for Pensions Reform in the Department for Work and Pensions from May 2005 where he was was heavily involved with the Reform of Pensions Legislation following the publication of the Turner Commission in 2005.  In May 2006 he was appointed to the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.  He was appointed in June 2007 as Minister for Competitiveness at the newly-formed Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, where he was responsible for enterprise, growth and business investment.

Stephen entered Parliament in 1994 as Labour MP for Newham North East through a by-election on 9 June 1994, and was re-elected to the new constituency of East Ham in May 1997. At the June 2001 General Election his majority increased to 21,032, the third highest in the country. He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Rt. Hon. Andrew Smith, Minister of State for Employment, at the Department for Education and Employment from May 1997 to March 1998, and to Mo Mowlam from February 1998 at the Northern Ireland Office.

Stephen Timms advised Labour's information society policy forum in Opposition and was the honorary president of the Telecommunications Users Association and a member of the Council of the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee. In opposition he also served on Parliamentary Standing Committees including the 1996 Broadcasting Bill, the 1996 Housing Bill and the 1995 Finance Bill. Stephen Timms was a member of the Treasury Select Committee from January 1996 and was secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party's Treasury Committee, until the 1997 election. He was also a member of the Tax Law Review Committee of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Stephen was born in 1955 and was educated at Farnborough Grammar School before reading mathematics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He has lived in the East London Borough of Newham since 1979. Stephen married Hui-Leng in July 1986 and they have no children.

Before entering Parliament, Stephen worked in the telecommunications industry for 15 years, first for Logica and then for Ovum. He managed Ovum's telecommunications reports business until his election. He was elected to Newham Council in 1984 and chaired the planning committee from 1987 to 1990 before serving as Leader of the Council from 1990 to 1994.

Stephen Timms sits on the Newham area board of the East London Business Alliance. He is a member of the Ramblers Association and a patron of the Christian Socialist Movement.

Apart from his Ministerial responsibilities Stephen Timms has concentrated on two main areas: Regeneration in East London- including Regeneration partnerships, Thames Gateway initiative, Stratford international station on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, health service funding- and in the area of Christian socialism.