Beverley Hughes
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The Rt. Hon. Beverley June Hughes (born March 30, 1950) is a British politician, and member of Parliament for Stretford and Urmston (in Greater Manchester). She is a member of the governing Labour Party and a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom since 2004. Since 17 June 2005 she has been Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families) at the Department for Education and Skills.
She was first elected to Parliament in the United Kingdom general election, 1997. She made headlines when as Child Protection Minister at the Home Office, she embarked on a media tour to condemn an episode of Brass Eye as "unspeakably sick", but was later forced to admit she hadn't actually seen it. She later became Immigration Minister, and was eventually forced to resign on April 1, 2004, after a series of scandals emerged about alleged bypassing of proper checks in order to reduce the backlog of immigration requests.
She was re-appointed into government after the 2005 general election, serving in the Department for Education and Skills as Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families.
She is married to Thomas McDonald.
Visa scam and Sacking
On 1st April 2004, Beverley Hughes in her position of Immigration Minister for Her Majesties Government was forced to resign her position when it was shown that she had been informed of procedural improprieties concerning the granting of visas to certain categories of workers from Eastern Europe - she had earlier told the House of Commons that if she had been aware of such facts she would have done something about it. Ms Hughes had dismissed calls to quit, saying she had not known of the claims.
Upon resignation No 10 have allegedly been quoted as saying that she had been warned about the problem up to a year previously. Ms Hughes said she had not set out to "intentionally mislead anyone", but she could not "in conscience continue to serve as immigration minister".
The prime minister replaced Ms Hughes with Work and Pensions Minister Des Browne.
External links
- [Guardian Politics Ask Aristotle - Beverley Hughes]
- [TheyWorkForYou.com - Beverley Hughes]
- [Hughes resigns over visa scam row] BBC, April 1st 2004
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