Peter Kyle was born on 9 September 1970 and grew up in West Sussex, where he was educated at Felpham Comprehensive School (now Felpham Community College), near Bognor Regis.[1] It was at school that he found out he had dyslexia and left school, in his own words, "without any usable qualifications".[1] By the age of 25, he was accepted on his third attempt to become a student at the University of Sussex, where he gained a degree in geography, international development, and environmental studies, and later a doctorate in community development.[1]
From 2007 to 2013, he was deputy chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO). In 2013, he became chief executive of Working for Youth, a newly formed charity focusing on helping unemployed youth.[6]
In December 2015, Kyle voted in favour of the United Kingdom carrying out targeted air strikes against Islamic State in Syria.[12][13] He was subsequently the subject of harassment and intimidation by anti-war activists who sent him a picture of a dead baby. In response he said, "People have put deep thought and a lot of anguish into this decision and are taking a very principled stance. We need to have respect for each other's views on this".[14][15]
Kyle sat on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee between 2016 and 2020. In May 2016, he questioned Mike Ashley, boss of Sports Direct, over poor working practices in his warehouses. Ashley accused Kyle of making "defamatory comments" against him and called for the MP to stand down from the committee.[16]
Kyle has championed apprenticeships, pledging in August 2016 to create 1,000 apprenticeships in 1,000 days in co-operation with the council and via the creation of a Greater Brighton Employer Skills Task Force.[19][20]
Kyle was re-elected as MP for Hove at the snap 2017 general election with an increased vote share of 64.1% and an increased majority of 18,757.[21][22]
In May 2018 Kyle called for the voting age to be lowered to 16 and put forward his own bill to this effect.[23] The bill failed to pass after the Conservative Party employed a filibuster to prevent a vote on the bill being held in the House of Commons.[24][25]
In March 2019, alongside fellow Labour MP Phil Wilson, Kyle put forward an amendment to Theresa May's Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.[26] Dubbed the "Kyle-Wilson" amendment, it aimed to pass the Withdrawal Agreement Bill on the condition that the deal on offer would go back to the British people through a confirmatory vote.[27] Whilst failing to pass twice in the House of Commons, it came 12 votes short on its second attempt.[28] Both Kyle and Wilson signalled that they would bring back the amendment if Boris Johnson were to return with a Brexit deal in October 2019.[29] Alongside deputy leader of the Labour Party Tom Watson, Kyle advocated for this position to become Labour policy.[30][31][32]
At the 2019 general election, Kyle was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 58.3% and a decreased majority of 17,044.[33][34][35]
Following Labour's defeat in the 2019 general election, Kyle urged Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to resign, saying that the loss was not related to Labour's position on Brexit but rather to "dissatisfaction with our leadership and seeming incompetence".[36]
In September 2020, Kyle was appointed a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel.[38] A vocal critic of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour party, in a 2019 meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, he challenged Corbyn "to consider what it is about his world view – separate from a political platform – that has attracted these people into our party in the first place."[39] He also signed an open letter to the Jewish Labour Movement pledging to stamp out antisemitism in the Labour Party, and "urges members of the group not to leave the party and apologises for letting its Jewish supporters down."[40] He endorsed the publication of the report by the EHRC which concluded that the Labour Party was guilty of breaches of the Equality Act 2010 in relation to antisemitism and apologised to the Jewish community. In 2014 Kyle attended a party delegation to Israel and the Palestinian Territories along with Dame Tessa Jowell and others party figures.[41]
In the aftermath of the October 7th Hamas massacre in Israel, Kyle condemned the Hamas atrocities. On 23 November 2023, he attended and spoke at the March Against Antisemitism in London along with Chief RabbiSir Ephraim Mirvis and Conservative MP Robert Jenrick.[42] In December he said that "This is something we must never forget. The Hamas terror attack was done in order to stop processes leading to peaceful existence, not to deliver one. They have sought to wreck any chance of peace. That can't be allowed to happen".[43]
In September 2022, he spoke in favour of Labour accepting Brexit and presenting a "positive vision for a better Britain" outside of the European Union.[44]
In April 2020, he became the Shadow Minister for Victims and Youth Justice.[46] He has campaigned on the issue of 'sex for rent' and demanded a change to the law for landlords who engage in sexual exploitation of tenants.[47]
In February 2021,[48] Kyle presented a bill for victims to Parliament which had the aims of:
Ensuring victims are read their rights at the same time as perpetrators
Creating a register for people who run departments in the justice system which routinely ignore victims' rights
Giving victims of persistent anti-social behaviour the same rights as victims of crimes
In November 2023, Kyle outlined Labour policies to impose stricter regulations on general artificial intelligence research companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic with stronger requirements for reporting, data-sharing, and user safety.[54] Kyle has also proposed the creation of a 'Regulatory Innovation office', which would expedite important regulatory decisions, the use of 10-year research and development budget settlement, in order to ensure stable long-term private investment, and a new body called 'Skills England', which would bring together "representatives of tertiary education, local and central government with representatives from business leaders and trade unions. In addition to strategic oversight of skills needs across England, the new body will also be responsible for assessing bids for colleges to become 'Technical Excellence Colleges'."[55]
In February 2024, Kyle announced that Labour would scrap the existing voluntary testing agreement between technology companies and the British government, instead creating a statutory regime in which Artificial Intelligence businesses would be required to share with the government the results of their test data.[56] He claimed that this would enable the government to better understand the risks involved in AI and the challenges it could pose to different industries and society in general. He also met with representatives of the United States government and AI companies in Washington, United States, including Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google, Apple, OpenAI, and Anthropic.[57]
Peter Kyle has endorsed the use of artificial intelligence technology to improve public services, including in the National Health Service and British education system.[58] He also said that "I have seen AI tools which I believe would have caught my mum's cancer earlier. It is personal for me to get this technology used in a way which keeps families together for longer. UK businesses can benefit hugely from the innovation this latest wave of technology can bring."[58]
Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
Following the Labour Party's victory in the 2024 United Kingdom general election, he was appointed to cabinet as Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology at the subsequent formation of the Starmer ministry.
For eight years he was in a relationship with Czech-born Vlastimil Tiser, until Tiser's death in 2012.[61] His mother died of cancer the following day.[62] He said in an interview with The Times that "2012, the year of the Olympics, one of the best years for many people, was the worst year of my life. [...] I was on autopilot. There was constant adrenaline. Then afterwards, silence."[61]
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