Topic: Peter Hain

Peter Gerald Hain (born 16 February 1950 Nairobi, Kenya) is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Neath since 1991, and has served in the Cabinets of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, firstly as Leader of the House of Commons under Blair and both Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Secretary of State for Wales under Brown. He resigned from ministerial office over the failure to declare donations to his campaign for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party in 2008. He is the Member of Parliament for the Welsh constituency of Neath. He came to the UK from South Africa as a teenager, and was a noted anti-apartheid campaigner in the 1970s.

Hain was born in Kenya but then moved to South Africa, in about a year. His parents were anti-apartheid activists in the South African Liberal Party, for which they were made "banned persons", briefly jailed, and prevented from working.

When Hain was 10, he was awoken in the early hours by police officers searching his bedroom for 'incriminating documents'. As a result of police harassment, Hain's father was unable to continue his work as an architect, and the family decided to leave for the United Kingdom in April 1966.