David Blunkett

The Right Honourable
The Lord Blunkett
PC FAcSS
The Right Honourable The Lord Blunkett PC FAcSS
	Official portrait, 2025
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
	In office; 6 May 2005 – 2 November 2005
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Alan Johnson
Succeeded by	John Hutton
Home Secretary
	In office; 8 June 2001 – 15 December 2004
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Jack Straw
Succeeded by	Charles Clarke
Secretary of State for Education and Employment
	In office; 2 May 1997 – 8 June 2001
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Gillian Shephard
Succeeded by	Estelle Morris
Leader
Shadow Cabinet offices ; 1992–1997
Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment
	In office; 20 October 1994 – 2 May 1997
Leader	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Ann Taylor
Succeeded by	Gillian Shephard
Shadow Secretary of State for Health
	In office; 18 July 1992 – 20 October 1994
Leader	John Smith; Margaret Beckett (Acting)
Preceded by	Robin Cook
Succeeded by	Margaret Beckett
Member of the House of Lords
	Lord Temporal
	Life peerage ; 28 September 2015
Member of Parliament; for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough; Sheffield Brightside (1987–2010)
	In office; 11 June 1987 – 30 March 2015
Preceded by	Joan Maynard
Succeeded by	Harry Harpham
Leader of Sheffield City Council
	In office; 1980 – 11 June 1987
Deputy	Alan Billings
Preceded by	George Wilson
Succeeded by	Clive Betts
Member of Sheffield City Council; for Southey Green
	In office; 8 May 1970 – 1987
Preceded by	Winifred Golding
Personal details
Born	6 June 1947; Sheffield, England
Party	Labour
Spouses	; Ruth Mitchell (m. 1970; div. 1990) ; Margaret Williams (m. 2009)
Children	4
Alma mater	Royal National College for the Blind, Hereford; University of Sheffield (BA); Huddersfield Holly Bank College of Education (PGCE)
Signature
Website	members.parliament.uk/member/395/contact

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David Blunkett, Baron Blunkett, PC (born 6 June 1947) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Education and Employment from 1997 to 2001, Home Secretary from 2001 to 2004 and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2005. A member of the Labour Party, he served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough (formerly Sheffield Brightside) from 1987 to 2015 and was appointed to the House of Lords as a life peer in 2015.

Following the 2001 general election, he was promoted to home secretary, a position he held until 2004, when he resigned following publicity about his personal life. Following the 2005 general election he was appointed secretary of state for work and pensions, though he resigned from that role later that year following media coverage relating to external business interests in the period when he did not hold a cabinet post. The Cabinet secretary Gus O'Donnell, in a letter of 25 November 2005, exonerated him from any wrongdoing.

On 20 June 2014, Blunkett announced to his constituency party that he would be standing down from the House of Commons at the next general election in May 2015. In August 2015, he was awarded a peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours. He was created Baron Blunkett, of Brightside and Hillsborough in the City of Sheffield, on 28 September.