Profile: Who is Welsh Labour leadership contender Jeremy Miles?

Mr Miles and Vaughan Gething are vying to become the next first minister of Wales.
Jeremy Miles is vying to become first minister of Wales (Alamy/PA)
George Thompson15 March 2024
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Wales’ education minister Jeremy Miles is one of the two men hoping to become the next first minister of Wales.

With the results of the Welsh Labour leadership race set to be declared on Saturday, here is everything you need to know about the man standing to become the Welsh government leader.

Mr Miles has represented Neath in the Senedd since 2016 and joined the cabinet a year later as the Counsel General for Wales.

Born in 1971, Mr Miles went to a bilingual school and is a native Welsh speaker.

In his manifesto, he talks about his commitment to equality, inspired by the prejudice he faced as a young gay man and the struggles endured by miners where he grew up in Pontarddulais, near Swansea.

Like his opponent Vaughan Gething, he went on to study law.

Mr Miles worked in the private sector for almost 20 years, practising as a solicitor in London.

Before being elected to the Senedd in 2016, Mr Miles stood for election to the UK parliament.

He stood first in the safe Conservative seat of Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire in 2010 and then tried to get the Labour selection for Aberavon in 2014, when he lost to Stephen Kinnock by one vote.

In the Senedd, he spearheaded legislation to extend voting rights to 16-year-olds for the first time in Welsh elections.

He also helped the Welsh government join a case by Gina Miller against the UK Government, which said the latter had acted unlawfully in proroguing Parliament in 2019 and denying the Senedd an opportunity to influence Brexit.

The Supreme Court ruled against the Conservative Government.

In 2018 he nominated and endorsed Mark Drakeford to succeed Carwyn Jones as the leader of Welsh Labour, over his rival Mr Gething.

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