Paul Waugh, the Labour and Co-operative MP for Rochdale, has been appointed by Prime Minister Andy Burnham as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Education.
He is the first MP for Rochdale to hold a departmental ministerial post since the constituency was created in 1832.
Mr Waugh will serve under the Education Secretary, Lucy Powell, in the department responsible for schools, early years, children’s social care, special educational needs and disabilities, colleges and skills. His specific brief is expected to be confirmed by the department shortly.
Born in Wardle and brought up on a council estate in Spotland, Mr Waugh was educated at Meanwood Primary School, Redbrook Middle School and Oulder Hill Community School in Rochdale before going on to university.
Paul Waugh MP said:
“Rochdale has sent members to Parliament for nearly two hundred years and has never had one of its own in a ministerial post. That says something about how long this town has waited to be heard at the centre of government, and I do not intend to waste the chance.
“I’m proud that I went to state schools in Rochdale. The teachers who taught me changed my life by showing me the world of opportunity that was out there – and unlocking my potential.
“Every child in this borough deserves the best possible start in life, and my job now is to help make that a reality for so many more youngsters.”
The appointment means Rochdale has direct representation in government for the first time in the constituency’s history, at a department whose decisions reach into every school, nursery and college in the borough.
Mr Waugh added:
“Being a minister does not change the work I will continue to do for the people of Rochdale. I will still be at my surgeries, still answering casework, still fighting for the things this town needs.
“Rochdale gave the world the co-operative movement, built on the idea that people get further together than they do alone. That is a decent principle to take into a department whose mission should be to give children and young people the fairest crack at getting on in life.”
Notes for Editors
- Paul Waugh has been the Labour and Co-operative MP for Rochdale since July 2024. His appointment as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Education was announced on 22 July 2026.
- Rochdale has returned a Member of Parliament at every general election since the seat was created by the Reform Act 1832.
- Richard Cobden, elected unopposed as MP for Rochdale in 1859, was offered a seat in Lord Palmerston’s Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. He declined, and held no ministerial office in his career. He represented Rochdale until his death in 1865.
- Jack McCann, Labour MP for Rochdale from 1958 until his death in 1972, served in the government whips’ office under Harold Wilson as a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury from 1964 to 1966 and from 1967 to 1969, and as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household from 1966 to 1967. He did not hold a departmental portfolio.
- Sir Tony Lloyd, MP for Rochdale from 2017 until his death in January 2024, served as Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1997 to 1999, during his time as MP for Manchester Central.
- John Bright, the Rochdale-born Liberal statesman who served in three of Gladstone’s Cabinets, sat for Durham, Manchester and Birmingham, and never represented his home town in Parliament.