Jimmy Hood

Jimmy Hood
Member of Parliament for Lanark and Hamilton East (2005–2015) Clydesdale (1987–2005)
In office 11 June 1987 – 30 March 2015
Preceded by	Judith Hart
Succeeded by	Angela Crawley
Majority	13,478 (29%)
Personal details
Born	(1948-05-16) 16 May 1948 Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, Scotland
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Marion McCleary
Alma mater	University of Nottingham

James Hood (born 16 May 1948) is a Scottish Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lanark and Hamilton East since the constituency's creation in 2005 until 2015. He was first elected to the Westminster parliament in 1987, as MP for Clydesdale. Hood, a former National Union of Mineworkers trade union official during the miners' strikes of the 1980s, remained a backbencher throughout his parliamentary career.

Early life

Jimmy Hood was born in Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire and was educated at the Lesmahagow Higher Grade School in Lesmahagow, Coatbridge College, Motherwell Technical College and University of Nottingham.

He worked with the NCB for 23 years, as a mining engineer from 1964, the year he joined the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) until 1987. He started his career with the NCB in the Lanarkshire Coalfield, at Auchlochan Colliery, moving to Nottinghamshire on the closure of the Lanarkshire coalfield in the summer of 1968 and became a NUM trade union official in 1973. During the Miners' Strike of 1984–5 he led the striking Nottinghamshire miners.

Parliamentary career

From 1973–87 he was on Ollerton Parish Council. In 1979 he was elected as a councillor to the Newark and Sherwood District Council and served until his election to Westminster.

He was elected to the House of Commons for Clydesdale at the 1987 general election following the retirement of the veteran sitting Labour MP Judith Hart. Hood held the seat with a majority of 10,502. His Clydesdale based seat was abolished as part of boundary changes directly before the 2005 general election. Hood then stood for the newly created seat and was elected as MP for Lanark and Hamilton East until the 2015 general election. He represented the seat of Lanark and Hamilton East, until his defeat at that election to the Scottish National Party's Angela Crawley..

Jim Hood represented the town of Lanark in the House of Commons longer than any other MP..

In Parliament he joined the left-wing Campaign group and initially refused to pay the poll tax.^[1] In 1998 he called for the abolition of the system of Parliamentary whips in a debate on workplace bullying, arguing that workplace abuses existed in Parliament "where careers are controlled by the carrot and stick of political patronage" and suggesting that "career assassination" was commonplace.^[2] Despite his credentials as a leftwing firebrand he subsequently came to be regarded as a relatively loyal supporter of Tony Blair's 'New Labour'.^[1]

He voted against the first Gulf War,^[1] and was one of many Labour rebels that voted against the invasion of Iraq in 2003^[3]

In parliament he served as the chairman of the European legislation select committee from 1992 until 2006, having been a member from 1987.^[4] He was also member of the Liaison Committee from 1992 until 2006 and on the Defence Select Committee between 1997 and 2001.^[4] He has been a member of the Speaker's panel of chairman since 1997^[4]

In November 2008, Hood was one of 18 MPs who signed a Commons motion backing a Team GB football team at the 2012 Olympics, saying football "should not be any different from other competing sports and our young talent should be allowed to show their skills on the world stage". The football governing bodies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all opposed to a Great Britain team, fearing it would stop them competing as individual nations in future tournaments.

In February 2014, Hood outlined his opposition to Scottish independence in a commons debate, stating "Even if the SNP was right and there was a grand, great thing at the end of the rainbow for the SNP and its debate for independence, I would still be against it. If the Scottish people are going to be better off economically and so on, I would still be against breaking away from the Union."^[5]

In October 2014, Hood caused controversy when he invoked parliamentary privilege to link former Home Secretary Leon Brittan to accusations of improper conduct with children. He added that 'I am just repeating what I read in the papers'.^[6][7]

On 7 May 2015, Hood lost his parliamentary seat to the Scottish National Party's candidate Angela Crawley, a current South Lanarkshire Council councillor. Crawley overturned Hood's previous majority to command a 10,100 majority for the Scottish National Party.

Expenses

During the MPs expenses scandal it was reported that Hood had claimed £1000 per month in second home expenses without claiming receipts, which was up to the permissible limits in place at the time.^[8] Hood said his second London home was necessary because of the distance of Westminster from Lanarkshire, and he accepted it would not be possible to make claims of that size in future without receipts and he "fully supported" putting details of expenses online.

Personal life

He has been married to Marion McCleary since 1967. They have a son and a daughter and two grandchildren. He suffered a heart attack in 1998.^[9]

References

External links

• constituency website in use while Hood was an MP