Dan Jarvis

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Dan Jarvis is a British Labour and Co-operative politician and former soldier who has held several key roles in government and local leadership. He has been the Member of Parliament for Barnsley North since 2011 (before that, Barnsley Central). He also served as Mayor of the Sheffield City Region (South Yorkshire) from 2018 to 2022. In July 2024 he was appointed Minister of State for Security, and in September 2025 he also took on the role of Minister of State in the Cabinet Office.

Early life and military career: Born Daniel Owen Woolgar Jarvis in Nottingham on 30 November 1972, he studied international politics at Aberystwyth University and earned an MA in conflict, security and development from King’s College London. He joined the British Army in 1997 as an officer in the Parachute Regiment, rising to the rank of Major. He served in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Northern Ireland, and was awarded an MBE in 2011 for his military service. He left the army in 2011 to pursue politics full-time.

Political career: Jarvis joined the Labour Party as a student and was chosen to stand for Barnsley Central in a 2011 by-election after the previous MP’s resignation. He won with a large majority and became the first Labour candidate for the seat since 1938 who wasn’t born in Yorkshire. In Parliament he has held roles such as shadow arts minister (2011) and shadow youth justice and victims minister (2013), and later served as Shadow Minister for Security (2023–2024). He supported remaining in the EU during the referendum and voted to trigger Article 50 after the vote.

As Mayor, he championed the Strategic Economic Plan to boost jobs and growth and aimed for net-zero carbon emissions in the region by 2040. He declared a Climate Emergency in 2019, launched the Energy Strategy in 2020, and backed transport improvements including the Connecting Sheffield project and Northern Powerhouse Rail. He created the South Yorkshire Renewal Fund (£500 million) to support infrastructure, transport, and jobs and helped drive efforts to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personal life: Jarvis’s first wife, Caroline, died of bowel cancer in 2010. He remarried in 2013 to Rachel Jarvis, and they have children. He is also an author; his memoir A Long Way Home (2020) won Best Memoir at the Parliamentary Book Awards, and he has run the London Marathon since 2010.