After leaving higher education, he worked for local authorities in leisure management; and it was while he was working in a sports centre and she was doing aerobics that he met his wife, Joanna Irranca, born to Italian parents who had come to work in South Wales in the 1950s. On marriage, the couple both changed their surnames to Irranca-Davies; he in particular felt his existing surname was too common. The couple have three sons.[4]
In 2001, Irranca-Davies was Labour candidate for the Brecon & Radnor constituency, but finished third, behind the Liberal Democrat and Conservative candidates.[5] In the by-election of 14 February 2002 he was elected to represent the Ogmore constituency in the South Wales Valleys (a Labour seat since 1918), following the death of MP and Government Whip Sir Ray Powell.[6] (Irranca-Davies was himself appointed Government Whip for Wales in May 2006 after spells as a Parliamentary Aide in several government departments.)[citation needed] He was re-elected to serve Ogmore in the general elections of 2005, 2010 and 2015.[7][8][9]
While in Parliament, Irranca-Davies worked on a range of local and national issues, including sitting on the Procedures Select Committee to discuss ways of modernising the work of Parliament.[10] He also sat on Standing Committees for a number of bills, including the Police Reform Act 2002,[11] Fireworks Bill[12] and Communications Bill, among others.[10] He also held positions on the Welsh Grand Committee and the Northern Ireland Grand Committee. He worked on Parliamentary Labour Party ('PLP') Committees on Welsh Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Home Affairs and International Development. He was also the backbench MP representative on the board of the Coal Health Claims Monitoring Subgroup for Wales.[citation needed]
Irranca-Davies has spoken in the House of Commons on topics as varied as international trade union rights, compulsory voting, anti-social behaviour, renewable energy and climate change, fair trade, social justice and poverty and inequality.[13] In June 2005 he became Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Tessa Jowell, having previously served as PPS to Jane Kennedy at the Northern Ireland Office.[14] He served as PPS to Ministers of the Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Culture, Media and Sport. He worked as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of Wales, and as an Environment Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).[10] Between October 2010 and October 2011, he served as the Shadow Energy Minister where he led the Labour campaign on the protection of the Feed-In Tariff for solar power. In October 2011, he was appointed as the Shadow Minister on Food and Farming.[10][14]
He belonged to a number of All Party Groups within Parliament, including the All Party Groups for British Council (Vice-Chair), China Group, Citizens Advice, Clean Coal, Coalfield Communities, Energy Intensive Industries (Vice-Chair), Manufacturing, Maritime and Ports, Steel and Metal Related Industry, Children in Wales, Patient and Public Involvement in Health and Social Care (Co-Chair), University Group (Vice-Chair), and Waterways (Co-Chair). He served as Chair of the All Party Group for the Recognition of Munitions Workers which aims "work with the government to find a means of recognising those munitions workers who served during the first and second world wars"[15]
In October 2015, Irranca-Davies announced his wish to transition from Westminster to Cardiff Bay. In December 2015, he was selected to contest the Ogmore seat as a Welsh Labour and Co-operative Party[20] candidate at the 2016 Welsh Assembly election.[21] Irranca-Davies won the Assembly seat, with a majority of 9,468.[22] He was re-elected in 2021.[23]
Irranca-Davies was appointed as Minister for Children and Social Care in November 2017 by First Minister Carwyn Jones.[24][25] He served in the role for just over a year, before returning to the Backbenches in December 2018.[26] In March 2024 he was appointed Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs in the Gething government.[27][28]
In July 2024, after Vaughan Gething stood down as leader of the Welsh Labour party, Irranca-Davies was initially tipped as a candidate to replace him.[29] However, Irranca-Davies declined to run for the leadership, instead forming a unity ticket with Eluned Morgan, under which he would be Deputy First Minister of Wales.[29][30] Morgan was the only candidate to receive the required number of nominations, and therefore was elected leader of the Labour Party.[31] He was appointed Deputy First Minister of Wales in August.[32]
Westminster Parliamentary and UK Government Offices held
May 2005 – May 2006: Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport
May 2006 – June 2007: Assistant Government Whip
June 2007 – October 2008: Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Wales
October 2008 – May 2010: Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
October 2008 – June 2009: Natural Environment and Rural Affairs
June 2009 – May 2010: Marine and Natural Environment
May 2010 – October 2010: Shadow Minister for Marine and Natural Environment (Shadow Defra Minister)
October 2010 – October 2011: Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change
October 2011 – May 2015: Shadow Minister for Food and Farming
In 2005 he was voted the 48th sexiest man in Wales by the Western Mail.[34]
In 2011, Irranca-Davies was shortlisted for the first Sports Parliamentarian of the Year award, an initiative introduced by the Sport and Recreation Alliance for the work he has done to promote archery. He was nominated by the Archery GB after he hosted the first sporting event to ever take place in Parliament in September 2011.[35]
The event brought MPs and peers together as well as gold medallists such as Nicky Hunt on Speakers' Green for a day devoted to the sport.[36]
In February 2013 Irranca-Davies was named Total Politics MP of the Month. He won the award for his work in standing up for farmers and consumers in the Ogmore constituency and across the nation by persuading the government to u-turn on the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) Bill.[37]
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