John Grogan has been Member of Parliament for Selby, North Yorkshire since May 1997, when he was elected as the first ever Labour MP to represent the seat.

Born in Halifax, John studied at St Michael's School in Leeds before obtaining a place at St John's College, Oxford in 1979 to read for a degree in History and Economics. He graduated three years later and went on to spend a year as the first ever Labour President of the Oxford Student Union.

Prior to being elected to Parliament, John was Communications Co-ordinator for Leeds City Council where he devised the marketing campaign branding Leeds as a “24 hour European city”. He also worked as the Press Officer for the Labour Party in the European Parliament in Brussels, before going on to run a small business arranging conferences and events.

John is currently Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group and in 1999 was asked to chair the Liquor Licensing Reform Panel established by the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group to investigate the case for reform of our drinking hours. He later sat on the House of Commons Standing Committee which considered the Licensing Bill in detail in 2003. More recently, he has been instrumental in promoting the introduction of the Proof of Age Standards Scheme (PASS) card. In 2004 John was elected an Honorary Companion of the British Institute of Innkeeping in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the industry.

John was a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee from 1997 to 2001 and again since the 2005 General Election. He is currently Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Beer, Mongolia, the BBC and is Joint-Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party Health and Social Services Committee.