John Hutton
The Rt Hon. John Hutton is an accomplished U.K. politician who served as a member of the British House of Commons from 1992 to 2010. During his time in government, he held several prominent Cabinet positions, including secretary of state for defence; secretary of state for business, enterprise and regulatory reform; and secretary of state for work and pensions.
Lord Hutton was a minister in the Department of Health from 1998 to 2001, where he helped lead the modernization of the National Health Service. Following the 2005 general election, he was appointed to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and minister of the Cabinet Office under Tony Blair, and shortly after took the role of secretary of state for work and pensions, where he led the reform of the welfare state and oversaw the introduction of a new national occupational pension scheme.
Lord Hutton continued to serve in the Cabinet after Gordon Brown became prime minister in 2007, where he was appointed secretary of state for business, enterprise and regulatory reform, during which he committed Britain to a new generation of nuclear power stations. In 2008, Lord Hutton was appointed secretary of state for defence, a position he held until his resignation in June 2009.
Lord Hutton was made Baron Hutton of Furness, in the British House of Lords, in July 2010. He is currently chairman of the Royal United Services Institute, a British security and defense think tank. In June 2010 the Conservative government announced he would chair the independent commission into the future of public sector pensions.
Prior to public service, Lord Hutton worked as a senior law lecturer at Northumbria University. He also served as a legal adviser to the Confederation of British Industry. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Civil Law from Magdalen College at Oxford University.