Pat McFadden

Patrick Bosco McFadden (born 26 March 1965) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions since 2025, having previously served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 2024 to 2025. A member of the Labour Party, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wolverhampton South East since 2005. McFadden previously held various junior ministerial positions and shadow portfolios in his parliamentary career between 2005 and 2024.

McFadden attended the Cabinet of Prime Minister Gordon Brown as Minister of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2009 to 2010, deputy to Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Peter Mandelson (when Mandelson was Secretary from the Lords). He was Minister of State for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs from 2007 to 2009, and Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office from 2006 to 2007. Prior to his election to Parliament in 2005, he served as Political Secretary to the Prime Minister during the second Blair ministry.

In opposition, he served as Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in the first Shadow Cabinet of Harriet Harman from May to October 2010. Having failed to be elected in the 2010 Shadow Cabinet election, he was appointed Shadow Minister for Europe by Ed Miliband in 2014 and re-appointed by Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. McFadden was sacked from the front bench by Corbyn in 2016, and remained on the back benches until he was appointed Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury in 2020 by Sir Keir Starmer. He was promoted to the shadow cabinet in 2021 as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and became Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 2023.

McFadden returned to the government following Labour's victory in the 2024 general election, and was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations by Starmer in his ministry. In the 2025 cabinet reshuffle, he was appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

Patrick McFadden was born on 26 March 1965 in Paisley. He is the son of James McFadden and Annie McFadden (née Gallagher), both native Irish speakers from just outside Falcarragh, a village in County Donegal in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. As a child, Pat McFadden regularly visited County Donegal.

McFadden was educated at Holy Cross RC Primary School on Calder Street and Holyrood Secondary School in Crosshill, south-east Glasgow. He later attended the University of Edinburgh from 1983 to 1987, earning an MA degree in politics.

He was chair of Scottish Labour Students in 1986–87.

In 1988 he became a researcher for Donald Dewar, then Labour's Scottish Affairs spokesman.