Geoff Hoon

The Right Honourable Geoff Hoon MP
Secretary of State for Transport
In office 3 October 2008 – 5 June 2009
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Ruth Kelly
Succeeded by	The Lord Adonis
Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury Chief Whip of the House of Commons
In office 28 June 2007 – 3 October 2008
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Jacqui Smith
Succeeded by	Nick Brown
Minister of State for Europe
In office 6 May 2006 – 27 June 2007
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Douglas Alexander
Succeeded by	Jim Murphy
In office 28 July 1999 – 11 October 1999
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Joyce Quin
Succeeded by	Keith Vaz
Leader of the House of Commons Lord Privy Seal
In office 5 May 2005 – 6 May 2006
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Peter Hain
Succeeded by	Jack Straw
Secretary of State for Defence
In office 11 October 1999 – 5 May 2005
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	George Robertson
Succeeded by	John Reid
Member of Parliament for Ashfield
Incumbent
Assumed office 9 April 1992
Preceded by	Frank Haynes
Majority	10,213 (24.3%)
Personal details
Born	(1953-12-06) 6 December 1953 Derby, United Kingdom
Political party	Labour - currently suspended from membership
Spouse	Elaine Anne Dumelow
Alma mater	Jesus College, Cambridge

Geoffrey "Geoff" William Hoon (born 6 December 1953) is a British politician. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashfield since 1992, and is a former Defence Secretary, Transport Secretary, Leader of the House of Commons and Labour Chief Whip.

Biography

Geoff Hoon was born in Derby, England, and is the son of Ernest Hoon and June Collett.

Educated at the independent Nottingham High School he read law at Jesus College, Cambridge, graduating in 1974.

Career

He was a law lecturer at the University of Leeds from 1976 until 1982, and was a warden at the all-male Devonshire Hall. He was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1978, and was also a visiting law professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky from 1980-1. In 1982, he became a practising barrister for two years in Nottingham.

Personal life

Hoon married Elaine Dumelow in 1981. The couple have two daughters and a son. Hoon enjoys football, running and cinema. He also enjoys music, including The Beatles, Beach Boys, David Bowie and other acts including Ryan Adams.

Hoon has recently also stated that he was a follower of early punk rock, writing an appreciative column in The Independent ( Sunday, 11 April 2010) about Malcolm Mclaren and the early American and British punk scenes.

Member of Parliament

Hoon was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for Derbyshire in 1984 and served in Brussels and Strasbourg for ten years. He was elected to the House of Commons at the 1992 general election for Ashfield following the retirement of the sitting Labour MP, Frank Haynes. He held the seat with a majority of 12,987 and has remained the constituency's MP since, making his maiden speech on 20 May 1992. He also attended the Bilderberg Conference in Scotland in 1998.

On 11 February 2010, Hoon announced that he will stand down at the next General Election. That evening the Ashfield Labour Party were due to vote on a motion of no confidence in his ability as the MP.

Shadow Cabinet and early government posts

In Parliament, Hoon was promoted by John Smith in 1994 when he was appointed as an opposition whip, and in 1995 he joined the frontbench team as a spokesman on Trade and Industry. Following the 1997 general election he became a member of the government of Tony Blair as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Lord Chancellor's Department, being promoted to the rank of Minister of State in the same department in 1998. In 1999, he was briefly a minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, before entering the cabinet later in the year as the Secretary of State for Defence. He became a member of the Privy Council in 1999. He served as the Lord Privy Seal and the Leader of the House of Commons from the 2005 general election until 5 May 2006. He was appointed on that day as Minister for Europe.

Secretary of State for Defence

Geoff Hoon (right) at Pentagon briefing with Donald Rumsfeld

In a 2003 interview on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost, Hoon asserted that the UK was willing to use nuclear weapons against Iraqi forces "in the right circumstances."

On 23 June 2003, Hoon continued to claim that two trailers found in Iraq were mobile weapons laboratories. This was in spite of the fact that it had been leaked to the press by Dr David Kelly and other weapons inspectors that they were nothing of the sort. The trailers were for filling hydrogen balloons for artillery ranging and were sold to Iraq by a British company, Marconi.

In an April 2004 interview, Hoon said that more could have been done to help David Kelly, who committed suicide on 17 July 2003 after being named as the source of Andrew Gilligan's disputed Today programme contribution.

On January 19, 2010, Hoon gave evidence to the Iraq Inquiry about his time as Defence Secretary.

Comments on cluster bombs

Shortly after the US/UK led invasion of Iraq began in 2003, following an admission by the Ministry of Defence that Britain had dropped 50 airborne cluster bombs in the south of Iraq and left behind up to 800 unexploded bomblets, it was put to Hoon in a Radio 4 interview that an Iraqi mother of a child killed by these cluster bombs would not thank the British army. He replied "One day they might." Hoon continued "I accept that in the short term the consequences are terrible. No one minimises those and I'm not seeking to do so," he said. "But what I am saying is that this is a country that has been brutalised for decades by this appalling regime and that the restoration of that country to its own people, the possibility of their deciding for themselves their future ... and indeed the way in which they go about their lives, ultimately, yes, that will be a better place for people in Iraq."

Comments on Extraordinary Rendition

Hoon was condemned by an international delegation of European MPs for evading questions about Britain's co-operation with the CIA's so-called 'extraordinary rendition' programme. Hoon, then Minister for Europe, was being quizzed in the wake of Dick Marty's Council of Europe report which found extensive involvement of European countries, including Britain, in the US kidnapping and torture programme.

Secretary of State for Transport

In the reshuffle after the sudden resignation of the Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly during the Labour Party Conference, Hoon became the Secretary of State for Transport on 3 October 2008. His old post of Labour Chief Whip was given to Nick Brown.

In January 2009, Hoon gave the official go-ahead for the controversial expansion of Heathrow Airport.

Hoon resigned from his post as Transport Secretary on 5 June 2009 during a Cabinet reshuffle, claiming that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

On 6 January 2010, he and fellow ex-minister Patricia Hewitt jointly called for a secret ballot on the future of the leadership of Gordon Brown. The following day, he said that it appeared to have failed and was "over". Brown later referred to the call for a secret ballot as a "form of silliness". After the failed coup there was a backlash against Hoon which flowed over into his Ashfield constituency in Nottinghamshire where some Labour party members wanted to deselect him.

Hoon had said that he would defend his seat at the 2010 General Election but according to the Financial Times he had "finally bowed to pressure" and on 11 February 2010, he announced that he would stand down as an MP at the next election.

Hoon has said that the first he knew of the 45 minute Iraq weapon claim was when he read it in the dossier on Iraq's weapons in September 2002.

Expense claims

In April 2009, it emerged that Hoon had rented out his London home and claimed expenses on his constituency house. While doing so, he had lived in state-owned, rent-free housing at Admiralty House. He asserted that he had only claimed what he was entitled to. But the financial arrangements were quite heavily criticized in the media, because his London home was registered as his main residence while it was allegedly let out to someone else. In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph printed allegations that he had been flipping his homes in London. Flipping is a technique for Members of Parliament to switch their designated second home between several houses, allowing them to claim the maximum available from public funds for home improvements.

Dispatches lobbyist investigation

Main article: 2010 Cash for Influence Scandal

Hoon was one of the MPs named in the 2010 sting operation. Hoon told an undercover reporter that he wanted to make "some real money". On 22nd March 2010 it was announced he had been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party, alongside Patricia Hewitt and Stephen Byers. Consequently, he was dropped from the Nato "group of 12" committee that had been drafting Nato's new mission statement.

External links

• Official Website
• Twitter page