Fiona Mactaggart
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Fiona Mactaggart MP
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Member of Parliament
for Slough |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 1 May 1997 |
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| Preceded by | John Arthur Watts |
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| Majority | 7,851 (21.2%) |
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| Born | 12 September 1953 Glasgow, Scotland |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Labour |
| Alma mater | Cheltenham Ladies' College, King's College London |
Fiona Margaret Mactaggart (born 12 September 1953, Glasgow) is a politician in the United Kingdom. She is Labour member of Parliament for the Slough parliamentary constituency.
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[edit] Early life
While at university, she was an outspoken member of the Young Students and Socialists Society and sought to live down her school days at the private Cheltenham Ladies' College. She read for a BA in English at King's College London, a MA at the Institute of Education, Bloomsbury and a PGCE at Goldsmiths College, New Cross. On being a teacher she said "I have a voice that children can hear at the other end of the playground."[citation needed]
She was Vice-President and National Secretary of the National Union of Students from 1978 to 1981. She was Press and Public Relations Officer for the National Council of Voluntary Organisation (NCVO) for six months before being General Secretary of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants[1] from 1982-87. She was a primary school teacher in Peckham from 1987-92. She was a councillor and Leader of the Labour Group on Wandsworth Council from 1988 to 1990. From 1992-7, she was a Lecturer in Primary Education at the Institute of Education and Chair of Liberty. While a primary school teacher, she decided to become an MP, as being able to change the world "thirty people at a time"[citation needed]seemed too slow for her.
[edit] Parliamentary career
Mactaggart was selected to stand for election for Labour through an all-women shortlist [2]. This method of selection was subsequently declared illegal in January 1996 as it breached sex discrimination laws,[3] Despite the ruling she remained in place as the candidate for the following year's election. She was elected in 1997.
From May 2003 until she asked to leave her post in the May 5, 2006 Cabinet reshuffle, she served at the Home Office as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for Criminal Justice, Race Equality and Communities and then Offender Management. She is on the Education & Skills Select Committee.
In November 2008 MacTaggart attracted criticism for using exaggerated of false statistics when discussing the issue of prostitution. She stated that "something like 80% of women in prostitution are controlled by their drug dealer, their pimp, or their trafficker." When questioned on her claim she stated that it "came from an official Government publication into prostitution and the sex trade" [4]. Such a claim is in fact completely without foundation, with the BBC stating "it is impossible to find that number in any research done on this subject." Additionally, even the government Home Office "do not endorse or use the figure that 80 per cent of prostitutes are controlled by others" [5]. Such use of false statistics is especially notable as MacTaggart is a very strong supporter of the government's new prostitution laws.
[edit] Personal life
Her father, the late Sir Ian Mactaggart Bt, was a multimillionaire Glasgow property developer, Conservative candidate and Eurosceptic. Her mother's father, Sir Herbert Williams Bt, was a Conservative Member of Parliament for 27 years. Her great-grandfather however was Sir John Mactaggart, the first treasurer of the first branch of Keir Hardie's Labour Party. Her father left her a fifth of his £6.5m estate, and it is thought she is the second richest Labour MP. Critics often make an issue of MacTaggart's huge wealth, with journalist Benedict Brogan describing her as "a Scottish laird who is as wealthy as she is humourless".[6]
She suffers from multiple sclerosis. She is not married and has no children, being infertile. Her sister stood as a Parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats in Devizes in the 1992 General Election[citation needed].
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.jcwi.org.uk
- ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19960109/ai_n9634358?tag=content;col1
- ^ "Labour blow as all-women lists outlawed". The Independent. Bnet.com. 9 January 1996. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19960109/ai_n9634289.
- ^ http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/rosa_prince/blog/2009/01/09/fiona_mactaggart_and_the_dodgy_prostitution_statistics
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7819984.stm
- ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1344548/Yesterday-in-Parliament.html
[edit] External links
- Fiona Mactaggart official site
- Fiona Mactaggart MP official biography on the Home Office website
- Fiona Mactaggart MP on Ask Aristotle from The Guardian
- Fiona Mactaggart MP on TheyWorkForYou.com
- Interviewed by BBC's Newsround
- Guardian 2003 article
- Chantal McCorkle[1], who has been visited in FCI Dublin by Fiona McTaggart
[edit] News items
- Interviewed on Newsnight
- Making public schools justify their charitable status in 2004 (even though she went to one herself)
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by John Watts |
Member of Parliament for Slough 1997 – present |
Incumbent |
