John Healey is joining the race to become Labour’s deputy leader, making him the 7th MP to do so.

Healey, who was a housing minister under Gordon Brown, made this announcement in an article in the Guardian. He said that he hadn’t planned on standing but has been “dismayed at how narrow and shallow Labour’s debate has been so far.”

He also wrote:

“I know I’m a late entrant when others have been up and running for some time. But the scale of the defeat, the complexity of the lessons and the huge task of holding things together while we rebuild requires a unifier – someone who can work across the political breadth of the party and with the unions.

“Our new leader must be able to give their total attention to establishing themselves and re-establishing Labour with the country. Labour’s internal affairs have to be left largely to others but their deputy must be much more than a party manager and motivator.’

He also went on to say that Labour must convince people to vote Labour and he outlined his vision for Britain which included his take on:

-Internationalism: “embracing our international obligations on both military and aid spending, as well as on climate change.”

-Jobs: “Investing to create good jobs and cure our productivity malaise”

-Devolution: “Making a generational shift of power to local areas so we create and spread wealth fairly across our divided country”

-Housing: “convincing parents that their kids can afford a decent home, by getting councils and private developers building again”

Healey who is the MP for Wentworth and Dearne used to be a campaigns director at the TUC and he replaced Dennis Skinner on the National Executive last year.

He has backed Yvette Cooper to be Labour’s leader.

His decision to enter into the contest means that at least one or two of the MPs standing for the deputy leader position won’t make it onto the ballot. Each candidate needs the backing of 35 MPs to stay in the race but as there are 232 MPs not all seven candidates could secure this number of votes.

The declared candidates are: Rushanara Ali, Ben Bradshaw, Stella Creasy, Angela Eagle, Caroline Flint, John Healey and Tom Watson.