Paul Dennett is a British politician serving as Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester since 2021. A member of the Labour Party, he has served as

Mayor of Salford The Mayor of Salford is a directly elected politician responsible for the executive functions of Salford City Council, created in 2012 for the City of Salford in Greater Manchester. The position is different from the long-existing and largely c ...

since 2016.

Early life

Dennett was born in

Warrington Warrington () is an industrial town in the Borough of Warrington, borough of the same name in Cheshire, England. The town sits on the banks of the River Mersey and was Historic counties of England, historically part of Lancashire. It is east o ...

and grew up

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

. He is openly gay. Dennett's father worked for a power station and was an active

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 ...

ist and his mother was a housewife and house cleaner. His parents would later run The Engine Pub in Prescot, Merseyside. He attended Park Road Primary School and Great Sankey High School, before working in customer services at a BT call centre. He received a BA in International Business from the

University of Ulster Ulster University (; Ulster Scots: or ), legally the University of Ulster, is a multi-campus public research university located in Northern Ireland. It is often referred to informally and unofficially as Ulster, or by the abbreviation UU. It i ...

, an MSc in Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations from the

Manchester Business School Alliance Manchester Business School (Alliance MBS) is the business school of the University of Manchester in Manchester, England. It is one of the oldest business schools in the UK, and provides education to undergraduates, postgraduates and e ...

, and an

MRES A Master of Research ( abbr. MRes, MARes, MScRes, or MScR) degree is an internationally recognised advanced postgraduate research degree in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong. In most cases, the degree is designed to prepare s ...

in Social Sciences from

Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester Metropolitan University is located in the centre of Manchester, England. The university has 40,000 students and over 4,000 members of staff. It is home to four faculties (Arts and Humanities, Business and Law, Health and Education ...

. While at university, Dennett worked as an HR adviser and as a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School.

Career

Dennett joined the Labour Party in 2007. He was elected the Mayor of Salford on 5 May 2016, succeeding Ian Stewart also of the Labour Party, and was re-elected in 2021. As the Mayor of Salford he is also a member of the

Greater Manchester Combined Authority The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is a combined authority for Greater Manchester, England. It was established on 1 April 2011 and consists of 11 members: 10 indirectly elected members, each a directly elected councillor from one ...

, is the GMCA's portfolio lead for Healthy Lives and Homelessness, and, , is the Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester. Dennett was formerly a local councillor for the Langworthy ward in Salford, and is a member of the Unite and UCU trade unions.

References

Year of birth missing (living people) English gay politicians Labour Party (UK) mayors Living people LGBTQ mayors of places in the United Kingdom Mayors of Salford Politicians from Warrington Members of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority Alumni of Ulster University Alumni of Manchester Metropolitan University 21st-century English LGBTQ people {{England-mayor-stub