Key interests and
achievements
Julie’s key interests include
health, equality, women’s issues, the environment and children’s rights.
She is a long-time supporter of
Macmillan and holds an annual Coffee Morning. Julie also supports the
development of the new Cancer Centre at Velindre in Cardiff North and has
campaigned for many years in support of a group of patients who contracted Hepatitis
C as a following the NHS contaminated blood scandal.
On the environment Julie has
been a keen supporter of the Reservoir Action Group to save, and then restore,
Llanishen and Lisvane Reservoirs. This campaign came to a successful conclusion
in 2023 when the reservoirs reopened to the public. She has also twice
campaigned for an official Green Belt for north Cardiff and continues to seek
long-term protection for this land.
After a constituent’s son was
severely injured by a dog, Julie became a supporter of a campaign to support
the control of dangerous dogs. More recently she has campaigned to reduce food
waste.
As a member of the Unite union
Julie has a strong interest in trade union rights and, before becoming a
minister in 2018, she chaired the Cross-Party Group on the PCS union, as well
as Cross-Party Groups on health and children.
Julie was a founder member of
the Welsh Refugee Council. She is also a founder member of the Women's Arts
Association; and a patron of the Touch Trust, Advocacy Matters, Pontyclun Bosom
Pals, and Women Seeking Sanctuary Advocacy Group Wales.
Personal history
Julie Morgan was born in
Cardiff and educated at Dinas Powys Primary School, Howell’s School in Cardiff,
King’s College London, the University of Manchester and Cardiff University. She
has a BA Hons in English and a postgraduate diploma in Social Administration.
Political history
In 1997 Julie was elected as MP
for Cardiff North - one of only 13 women ever to have been Welsh MPs (to date)
and the first woman to have represented Cardiff in Westminster. She was MP for
Cardiff North for 13 years until she narrowly lost the seat by 194 votes in
2010.
As MP for Cardiff North Julie
Morgan was a member of the Justice, Welsh Affairs, and Public Administration
Select Committees and of the Parliamentary Labour Party's Women's Group.
She was chair of groups
including the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Children in Wales,
working with children’s voluntary groups across Wales; the APPG for Gypsy and
Traveller Law Reform, and the APPG for Sex Equality (working with the Equality
and Human Rights Commission). She was also co-chair of the APPG on Global TB.
During her time in Westminster
she presented three Private Members’ Bills - one on banning smoking in public
places, one on granting votes at 16, and one on preventing under-18s from using
sunbeds which became law in 2010.
Julie was elected as the
Assembly Member for Cardiff North in 2011. During the Fourth Assembly she sat
on the Public Accounts Committee, the Finance Committee and the Environment
Committee as well as chairing seven Cross-Party Groups covering areas such as children, cancer, and
nursing and midwifery.
In the Fifth Assembly Julie was
re-elected with the highest number of votes cast for any AM. She chaired the
Cross-Party Groups on Cancer, the PCS Union and the Gypsy, Roma, Traveller CPG
until becoming a deputy health minister in December 2018. She was also a member
of two committees, the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee and the
Children, Young People and Education Committee, until becoming a minister.
