Iain David Wright (born 9 May 1972) is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hartlepool from 2004 to 2017, and served also as the Chairman of Business Innovation and Skills Committee. He was previously Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for apprenticeships, and 14 to 19 reform in the Department for Children, Schools and Families until 11 May 2010. In April 2017, he announced that he would not be seeking re election at the snap election of 2017. On 12 July 2017, fellow Labour MP Rachel Reeves succeeded Wright as Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee. Early life Wright was born in Hartlepool and graduated with a BA in 1994, and MA in 1995 in History from University College London. That year, he joined the Labour Party and was elected as an officer of Cleveland and Richmond Young Labour. He worked as a chartered accountant for Deloitte & Touche from 1996 to 2003, and for the One NorthEast RDA from 2003 to 2004, prior to his election to Parliament. He was elected as a councillor for the Rift House ward of Hartlepool Borough Council in 2002, and a served on the council's Cabinet with responsibility for performance management. Parliamentary career He was the only Hartlepool member on the shortlist when Peter Mandelson stepped down as Labour MP for the town in September 2004, and was easily selected as the Labour Party candidate for the by election. During the later stages of the campaign, three local members, one of whom featured in Conservative Party leaflets and another of whom had earlier failed to win the nomination, were reported in the Guardian (which subsequently endorsed Liberal Democrat rival Jody Dunn) to have been unhappy that no other local candidate had been available. The Labour Party dismissed the claims as having come from the "usual suspects". One subsequently apologised, and another was expelled. During the campaign, Wright highlighted the Labour government's controversial policies for tackling anti-social behaviour as well as the Liberal Democrats' refusal to support such measures in Parliament and stressed his local origins, in contrast to his main rival's. On polling day (30 September 2004), Wright was elected with a majority of 2,033, reduced from Mandelson's majority of 14,571. The campaign was unusually long for British by elections, effectively having begun on 22 July (the day Peter Mandelson announced his intention