68 Facts About Margaret Beckett

Dame Margaret Mary Beckett is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for Derby South since 1983.

Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1992 to 1994, Beckett briefly served as Leader of the Opposition and Acting Leader of the Labour Party following John Smith's death in 1994.

Margaret Beckett was first elected to Parliament in October 1974 for Lincoln and held junior positions in the governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan.

Margaret Beckett lost her seat in 1979, but returned to the House of Commons in 1983, this time representing Derby South.

Margaret Beckett was appointed to Neil Kinnock's Shadow Cabinet shortly afterward; she was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in 1992, becoming the first woman to hold that role.

When John Smith died in 1994, Margaret Beckett became the first woman to lead the Labour Party, although Tony Blair won the election to replace Smith shortly afterward and assumed the substantive leadership.

Margaret Beckett holds the record for the female MP with the longest service overall and is the only sitting MP who served in the Labour governments of the 1970s.

Margaret Beckett was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2013 New Year Honours for public and political service.

On 26 March 2022 Margaret Beckett announced that she would stand down at the next general election.

Margaret Beckett was born Margaret Mary Jackson in 1943, in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, into the family of an disabled Congregationalist carpenter father and an Irish Catholic teacher mother.

Margaret Beckett had two sisters, one later a nun, the other later a doctor and mother of three.

Margaret Beckett was educated at the Notre Dame High School for Girls in Norwich, then at University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, where she took a degree in metallurgy.

Margaret Beckett was an active member of the Students' Union and served on its council.

In 1961, Margaret Beckett joined Associated Electrical Industries as a student apprentice in metallurgy.

Margaret Beckett joined the Transport and General Workers Union in 1964.

Margaret Beckett joined the University of Manchester in 1966 as an experiment officer in its metallurgy department, and in 1970 went to work for the Labour Party as a researcher in industrial policy.

At the February 1974 general election, Margaret Beckett lost to Taverne by 1,297 votes.

Harold Wilson called another general election in October 1974, and Margaret Beckett again stood against Taverne in Lincoln.

Margaret Beckett remained in that position until she lost her seat at the 1979 general election.

Margaret Beckett joined Granada Television as a researcher in 1979.

Margaret Beckett was the subject of a vociferous attack from Joan Lestor at the conference.

Margaret Beckett was selected to stand at the 1983 general election as the Labour candidate in the parliamentary constituency of Derby South following the retirement of the sitting MP, Walter Johnson.

In March 2022 Margaret Beckett announced she would end her parliamentary career, standing down from MP as Derby South at the next general election.

Margaret Beckett became a Member of the Privy Council in 1993.

Margaret Beckett was the first woman to serve as deputy leader of the Labour Party.

In times when the party is in opposition, party leaders are subject to annual reelection at the time of the annual party conference; accordingly, Margaret Beckett was constitutionally entitled to remain in office as acting leader until the 1994 Conference.

Margaret Beckett decided to run for the position of Labour Leader, but came last in the subsequent leadership election, behind Tony Blair and John Prescott.

The deputy leadership was contested at the same time; Margaret Beckett was defeated in this contest, coming second behind Prescott.

Under Blair's leadership, Margaret Beckett was the Shadow Secretary of State for Health, and then from 1995 the President of the Board of Trade.

Margaret Beckett was one of the leading critics of the government when the Scott Report published its findings into the Arms-to-Iraq scandal in 1996.

The Labour Party was elected to government in a landslide in the 1997 general election and Margaret Beckett held a number of senior positions in the Blair government.

Margaret Beckett was succeeded by Peter Mandelson in July 1998.

Margaret Beckett was then Leader of the House of Commons from 1998 until her replacement by Robin Cook in June 2001.

Margaret Beckett's tenure saw the introduction of Westminster Hall debates, which are debates held in a small chamber near Westminster Hall on topics of interest to individual MPs, committee reports, and other matters that would not ordinarily be debated in the Commons chamber.

Margaret Beckett received admiration for her work as Leader of the House, working on this and a number of other elements of the Labour government's modernisation agenda for Parliament.

For legal reasons, Margaret Beckett was appointed formally as the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which appointment she held until MAFF was finally dissolved on 27 March 2002 and the remaining functions of that were transferred to the Secretary of State at large.

Margaret Beckett rejected demands for an expansion of nuclear power from a lobby including energy minister Brian Wilson and Downing Street staff.

Margaret Beckett argued there was no need for new nuclear for at least 15 years given current energy prices and generation capacity.

Margaret Beckett held the position of Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until May 2006, when she was succeeded by David Miliband.

Margaret Beckett was on the front line of the government's efforts to tackle climate change, and attended international conferences on the matter.

Margaret Beckett was the first woman to hold the post, and only the second woman to hold one of the Great Offices of State.

Some commentators claim that Margaret Beckett was promoted to Foreign Secretary because she was considered to be a 'safe pair of hands' and a loyal member of the Cabinet.

Margaret Beckett had to adapt quickly to her diplomatic role; within a few hours of her appointment as Foreign Secretary, she flew to the United Nations in New York City for an urgent meeting of foreign ministers to discuss the Iran nuclear weapons crisis.

Margaret Beckett is understood to have delegated European issues to the Foreign Office minister responsible for Europe, Geoff Hoon, who, following his demotion as Defence Secretary, continued to attend Cabinet meetings.

Hoon and Margaret Beckett were said to have a difficult ministerial relationship.

On 28 June 2007, Brown selected David Miliband as her replacement and Margaret Beckett returned to the back benches.

Margaret Beckett attended Cabinet meetings, but was not a full member and was not to be entitled to vote on collective decisions.

Margaret Beckett ultimately was allowed to return due to her cabinet experience and her economic management in the past.

Margaret Beckett is currently a member of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation, established in October 2009.

Margaret Beckett has served as a member of the Henry Jackson Society Advisory Council.

On 10 June 2009, Margaret Beckett announced that she wished to replace Michael Martin as Speaker of the House of Commons.

On 26 November 2010, Margaret Beckett was announced as the President of the NOtoAV campaign, which campaigned to retain the First Past the Post electoral system at the 2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum.

Margaret Beckett led the campaign to success, and FPTP remains the system used in UK parliamentary elections.

Margaret Beckett was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015.

Later, during an interview with BBC Radio 4's World at One, after it became known he was in the lead among the candidates, Margaret Beckett was asked if she was "a moron" for nominating Corbyn.

Margaret Beckett later supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Corbyn in the 2016 Labour leadership election.

Margaret Beckett further claimed that veteran Conservative MP Kenneth Clarke called Corbyn a "perfectly competent" opposition leader.

On 16 January 2016, Margaret Beckett released "Learning the Lessons from Defeat Taskforce Report", a 35-page report into why the Labour Party lost the general election of 2015 after the then deputy leader Harriet Harman requested Margaret Beckett investigate the reasons for Labour's failure.

Margaret Beckett said the party should campaign in ordinary language, focus its policy on the condition of Britain in 2020, unite for the EU referendum and draw up a five-year media strategy.

The Margaret Beckett report was criticised by some on the left-wing of British politics as "show[ing] that many Labour politicians still don't really understand why they lost" and blaming factors such as the rise of the SNP on Labour's losses, rather than campaigning against austerity.

Owen Jones, a columnist for The Guardian, said that the left should not fear the Margaret Beckett report, saying: "Let's have a full inquest, not in the interests of navel-gazing, but in the interests of winning".

In Parliament, Margaret Beckett is Chair of the National Security Strategy, and is a former member of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament and Modernisation of the House of Commons Committee.

On 24 November 2020, Margaret Beckett was elected to succeed the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association's Andi Fox as the Chair of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee.

Margaret Beckett was elected unopposed after NEC members from the left of the party staged a virtual walkout, protesting her election over then vice-chair Ian Murray from the Fire Brigades Union.

Margaret Beckett was criticised after being overheard insulting a fellow NEC member during a Zoom call on 11 March 2021.

Margaret Beckett thought her microphone was turned off when calling Laura Pidcock a "silly cow", after which Pidcock left the meeting.

Margaret Beckett married the chairman of her local Constituency Labour Party, Lionel Beckett, in August 1979.

Leo Margaret Beckett had two sons from a previous marriage, and three grandchildren.