Dawn Alison Louise Bowden (born 14 February 1960) is a British Labour Party politician and trade unionist serving as Minister for Children and Social Care since 2024. She previously served as Chief Whip of the Welsh Government from 2021 to 2023 and Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport (later also Tourism) from 2021 to 2024. Bowden has been the

Member of the Senedd A member of the Senedd (MS; plural: ''MSs''; ; , plural: ) is a representative elected to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; ). There are sixty members, with forty members chosen to represent individual Senedd constituency, Senedd constituencies, a ...

(MS) for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney since 2016.

Early life and education

Bowden was born on 14 February 1960 in

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

, England.'BOWDEN, Dawn', '' Who's Who 2017'', A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2017; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2016; online edn, Nov 201
accessed 30 Sept 2017
/ref> She was educated at St Bernadette Catholic Secondary School, a state-funded Catholic school in Bristol. Then, from 1976 to 1978, she undertook a secretarial course at Soundwell Technical College.

Career

Early career

Bowden began her working life as a

secretary A secretary, administrative assistant, executive assistant, personal secretary, or other similar titles is an individual whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, program evalu ...

. She worked for the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

between 1979 and 1982, and for Bristol City Council from 1982 to 1983. From April 2012 until her election to the

Welsh Assembly The Senedd ( ; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, Its role is to scrutinise the Welsh Government and legislate on devolve ...

in May 2016, Bowden was the head of health for UNISON Cymru/Wales (the Welsh division of the national

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

UNISON Unison (stylised as UNISON) is a Great Britain, British trade union. Along with Unite the Union, Unite, Unison is one of the two largest trade unions in the United Kingdom, with over 1.2 million members who work predominantly in public servic ...

Political career

In February 2016, it was announced that Bowden had been selected from an all-women shortlist to be the

Welsh Labour Welsh Labour (), formerly known as the Labour Party in Wales (), is an autonomous section of the United Kingdom Labour Party (UK), Labour Party in Wales and the largest party in modern Welsh politics. Welsh Labour and its forebears have won a p ...

candidate for the Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney constituency seat in the next

election. The all-women shortlist was controversial; it drew criticism from a number of male councillors, including the leader of

Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council () is the governing body for Merthyr Tydfil County Borough, one of the Principal Areas of Wales. History The parish of Merthyr Tydfil was governed by a local board from 1850 until 1894, when it was replace ...

. On 5 May 2016, she was elected a Member of the Welsh Assembly with 9,763 votes (47.2% of votes cast). Bowden has sat as a Labour Co-operative member since re-election in

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

. She was re-elected with a majority of 9,311 votes. After the election, she was appointed as Chief Whip for the Welsh Government and Deputy Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism by First Minister Mark Drakeford. She was moved from the role of Chief Whip to being a Ministerial liaison for the co-operation agreement, in May 2023. After Vaughan Gething was elected First Minister in May 2024, she was appointed as Minister for Social Care. First Minister Eluned Morgan retained her in this role when she appointed her cabinet in August 2024, but renamed it to ''Minister for Children and Social Care'' in Morgan's September 2024 reshuffle.

Personal life

Bowden has two children. Sam and Jack. In 2011, she married Martin; he works as a policy officer for

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bowden, Dawn 1960 births Living people Welsh Labour members of the Senedd Labour Co-operative members of the Senedd Female members of the Senedd Wales MSs 2016–2021 Wales MSs 2021–2026 British women trade unionists Trade unionists from Bristol