Profile outlines role of Andy Burnham’s wife Marie-France van Heel

Marie-France van Heel, the Dutch-born wife of new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, is expected to face more public attention even though spouses of British prime ministers do not have official positions. Early reports said she may avoid moving to Downing Street and stay at the family home in Manchester.

Van Heel, reportedly also known as M.F. and Frankie, is a 56-year-old marketing executive who grew up in the Netherlands and Belgium before moving to Britain. She kept a low profile during Burnham’s campaign to become MP for Makerfield and during his decade as Greater Manchester mayor.

Burnham met Van Heel in 1989 when both were students at the University of Cambridge. His former university professor John Mullan wrote in The Times that she was known as the “coolest girl in college” when the couple began dating. They briefly separated when Van Heel appeared on the television dating show “Blind Date” in the 1990s, but later reunited. Their first child, Jimmy, was born in March 2000, and they married after that. They also have two daughters, Rosie and Annie.

Van Heel has worked in marketing and strategy for Sky Digital and MTV Europe. According to a business profile cited in the source, she won an award last year as the region’s best marketing professional for her work at a Manchester-based electric vehicle charging company. She also reportedly helped design Burnham’s cartoon-style campaign logo.

During Burnham’s Makerfield campaign, false claims spread on social media about Van Heel’s executive job at Iduna, a company that owns parts of Manchester’s electric vehicle charging network. Burnham, then mayor of Greater Manchester, had declared the conflict of interest, but some posts falsely claimed he had favoured her company for contracts.

Van Heel has also spoken publicly about her family history of breast cancer. Her grandmother, mother and sister died from the disease, and she had a preventative double mastectomy in 2010 after discovering a gene mutation. In a Cancer Research fundraiser this year, she wrote that breast cancer had taken the lives of her grandmother, mother and sister. Burnham told the Daily Mirror in 2012 that the decision was hard but liberating for her because it lifted fear.

The BBC reported that Van Heel was not expected to leave Manchester for Downing Street, and that Burnham was expected to divide his time between London and Manchester. Their three adult children are also not expected to move to the official residence. The source said it was unclear where Axel, the family’s white rescue bichon poodle cross, would live.