Margaret Beckett

Margaret Mary Beckett (née Jackson) (born 15 January 1943) is a British Labour Party politician who is currently Member of Parliament (MP) for Derby South and, since May 6, 2006, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. She is the first woman to hold this position in the British Cabinet and only the second woman to hold one of the four Great Offices of State. She was also the second woman to serve as leader of a major British political party - she was leader of the Labour Party after the sudden death of John Smith in 1994 until the election of Tony Blair the following year.

Background

She was born Margaret Mary Jackson in 1943, in Ashton-under-Lyne into a working-class family. Her father was an English carpenter and her mother an Irish Catholic. Her sister is a RC nun. She was educated at the Notre Dame High School for Girls (a state-school in Norwich), the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, where she qualified as a metallurgist, and the John Dalton Polytechnic, now Manchester Metropolitan University.

In 1961, Beckett joined Associated Electrical Industries as a student apprentice in metallurgy. She joined the Transport and General Workers Union in 1964 and remains a member to this day. She joined the University of Manchester in 1966 as an experiment officer in its metallurgy department. In 1970 Beckett went to work for the Labour Party as a researcher in industrial policy.

She married party official Lionel "Leo" Beckett in Lincoln in 1979. Leo works as Beckett's agent and aide, travelling with her and working in her private office. The couple are a close political and professional team ^[1]. They have no children.

Early political career, 1973-79

In 1973, she was selected as Labour candidate for Lincoln, which the party wanted to win back from dissident ex-Labour MP Dick Taverne. Beckett lost to Taverne at the February 1974 General Election by 1,297 votes. After the election she went to work as a researcher for Judith Hart, the Minister for Overseas Development at the Foreign Office. Harold Wilson called another general election in October 1974, and Beckett again went to fight Taverne at Lincoln in the October 1974 General Election. This time Beckett was elected, by just 984 votes.

Junior Minister in Wilson/Callaghan Governments, 1974-79

Almost immediately after her election she was appointed as Judith Hart's Parliamentary Private Secretary. Harold Wilson made her a Whip in 1975, and she was promoted in 1976 by James Callaghan to Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Education and Science, replacing Joan Lestor, who had resigned in protest over spending cuts. She remained in that position until she lost her seat at the 1979 General Election. The Conservative candidate Kenneth Carlisle narrowly won the seat with a 602 vote majority, the first time the Conservatives had won at Lincoln since 1935.

Out of Parliament and in opposition, 1979-97

She joined Granada Television in 1979 as a researcher. Out of Parliament, and now Margaret Beckett, she won election to Labour's National Executive Committee in 1980, and supported left-winger Tony Benn for the Labour deputy leadership in 1981 against Denis Healey. She was the subject of a vociferous attack from Joan Lestor at the conference.

Beckett was chosen to fight the parliamentary seat of Derby South after the retirement of the sitting MP, Walter Johnson. At the 1983 General Election she won the seat only very narrowly, with the Labour majority down to 421. During her time in Parliament, she has continued to live in the constituency, in one of the poorer areas of Derby, next door to a public house and in an area dominated by council housing. She continues to support local co-operatives.

Shadow Cabinet and Deputy Leader, 1984-94

Returning to the House of Commons, Margaret Beckett gradually moved away from the hard left, supporting incumbent leader Neil Kinnock against Benn in 1988. By this time she was a front bencher, as a spokesperson on Social Security since 1984, becoming a member of the Shadow Cabinet in 1989 as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. After the 1992 General Election she was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and served under John Smith as Shadow Leader of the House of Commons. She became a Member of the Privy Council in 1993.

Leader of the Labour Party 1994-95

Following the sudden death of John Smith from a heart attack on May 12, 1994, Margaret Beckett became Labour leader, the Party's constitution providing for the automatic succession of the Deputy Leader for the remainder of the leadership term, upon the death or resignation of an incumbent leader. Labour leaders are subject to annual re-election at the time of the annual party conference. Accordingly, Beckett was constitutionally entitled to remain in office as leader until the 1994 Conference, but the party's National Executive Committee (NEC) decided to bring forward the election for Leader and Deputy Leader to July 1994.

During the period between the Smith's death and the subsequent election of Tony Blair as Labour leader, Beckett was widely referred to as "acting Labour Leader"^{[citation needed]}, although this was technically incorrect.

She came third in the subsequent leadership election, behind Tony Blair and John Prescott. Beckett herself had decided that the post of Deputy Leader should be contested at the same time as the leadership role, to ensure that the new leader's team had the full backing of party members^{[citation needed]}. In the event, Beckett was defeated in the deputy leadership vote as well, coming second behind Prescott.

New Labour, 1995-97

Under Tony Blair's leadership, Margaret Beckett was the Shadow Secretary of State for Health, and then from 1995 the shadow President of the Board of Trade. She was one of the leading critics of the government when the Scott Report published its findings into the Arms-to-Iraq scandal in 1996.

In Government, 1997 to present

The Labour party won a landslide victory in the 1997 General Election and despite her connections to the old left of the party and the trade union movement, with which Tony Blair has an uneasy relationship, Margaret Beckett has held a number of important positions in the Blair government. As of March 2007, she is the last remaining minister to have experience in the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. She is also one of five remaining members of the original 1997 Labour cabinet, and one of the longest-serving Labour frontbenchers. She has held the offices of:

President of the Board of Trade, 1997-98

Following the 1997 election, she entered Tony Blair's government as the President of the Board of Trade (a position the title of which would later revert to Secretary of State for Trade and Industry). She was succeeded by Peter Mandelson in July 1998. She was the first woman to have held this post.

Leader of the House of Commons, 1998-2001

She was Leader of the House of Commons from 1998 until her replacement by Robin Cook in June 2001. Her tenure saw the introduction of a second debating chamber for the House of Commons, Westminster Hall. Debates that take place in Westminster Hall are often more consensual and informal, and can address the concerns of backbenchers. As Leader of the House, she received admiration^{[citation needed]}for the way in which she took through a controversial Act of Parliament regarding House of Lords Reform.

Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2001-06

After the 2001 General Election, Beckett became Secretary of State at the new Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, created after the old Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was abolished in the wake of perceived mismanagement of the foot and mouth disease epidemic in 2001. The new department also incorporated some of the functions of the former Department for Transport, Environment and the Regions (DETR), and was known by its initials, "DEFRA". She held the position of Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until May 2006, when she was succeeded by David Miliband. Beckett would be on the front line of the government's efforts to tackle climate change, and attended international conferences on the matter. Towards the end of her time at DEFRA there was a crisis within the Rural Payments Agency, which failed to make statutory payments to farmers whose livestock had been affected by BSE and TB; the crisis generated some political pressure on Beckett and the then Farming minister Lord Bach.

Foreign Secretary, 2006 to present

Following the 2006 local elections she was made Foreign Secretary, the first woman to hold the post, and only the second to hold one of the great offices of state (after Margaret Thatcher). Beckett's appointment was something of a surprise, and Beckett herself admitted that she had responded to the news with a four-letter word.^[2] Beckett has never lived abroad, and is not known to read or speak Arabic, Chinese or Russian.

Some commentators have claimed that one reason for her promotion to Foreign Secretary was that she is considered a 'safe pair of hands' and a loyal member of the Cabinet,^[3][4] although her experience of dealing with international climate change issues has also been cited as a factor in the move.^[5]

Beckett entered the role of Foreign Secretary with some experience of international affairs from her years at Defra ^[6]. Although in August 2002 she had expressed reservations about the prospect of a war in Iraq, she publicly supported the 2003 invasion. Beckett was to have a busy brief, and just a few hours after becoming foreign secretary she flew to the United Nations for an urgent meeting of foreign ministers regarding the Iran crisis with nuclear weapons. About a month later, Beckett was criticised for not responding quickly enough to the 2006 Lebanon war, which saw Israel start to invade the country, although some reports suggested that the delay was caused by Cabinet division rather Mrs Beckett's reluctance to give a public reaction.^[7] She has come under more political fire recently, defending the United Kingdom's controversial involvement in Iraq. Beckett leaves European issues to the Foreign Office minister responsible for Europe, Geoff Hoon, who attends Cabinet, although Hoon and Beckett are widely thought to have a difficult relationship.^[8][9]

Criticism

Tony Blair's appointment of her as Foreign Secretary has come under some criticism. According to the Times she does not stand up well in comparison with the previous Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw.^[10] The Spectator recently described her as, "at heart, an old, isolationist, pacifist Leftist" and has called on her to resign.^[11] She has also been accused of allowing the Foreign Office to become 'subservient' to Tony Blair after the tenures of Jack Straw and Robin Cook. ^[12]

In report published on the 29 March 2007 by a select government committee, she was strongly criticised and called upon to resign as Foreign Secretary for her role, as the previous Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in the 2006 mismanagement of EU farm subsidies (which cost the British Government up to £500 million in EU fines). ^[13]

She also saw some criticism in April 2006 when the details of ministers' use of Royal Air Force aircraft for official travel were published. Beckett was discovered to have taken 134 flights on ministerial business between 2002 and March 2005, flying 102,673 miles. The press noted also that Lionel Beckett frequently accompanied her on trips, leading to his being described as the "political equivalent of a Wag" (Times, 23 July 2006).

In March 2007, the Times columnist Stephen Pollard stated: "There will not be many people who seriously challenge the claim that Mrs Beckett is the most hopeless Foreign Secretary of the modern political era. Not only is she incompetent, but she is almost entirely unprincipled. And it is that combination which makes her the ultimate, shameless symbol of politics today." ^[14]

Constituency

In August 2006, 37 Labour Party members in her constituency left the party and joined the Liberal Democrats, criticising her approach to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.^[15]

Her seat of Derby South as of 2006 has a majority of just over 5,000 and is no longer seen as a safe Labour seat.

Beckett and her husband enjoy caravan holidays and have continued to do so throughout her political career ^[16]. She was asked to give up holidays in her Bailey Pageant Champagne in 2006 in light of security concerns.^[17]

Notes

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