Fiona Mactaggart

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Fiona Mactaggart MP
Fiona Mactaggart
Member of Parliament
for Slough
Incumbent
Assumed office 
1 May 1997
Preceded by John Arthur Watts
Born 12 September 1953 (1953-09-12) (age 54)
Glasgow
Nationality British
Political party Labour
Alma mater Cheltenham Ladies' College

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 Cheltenham Ladies' College schooling. Student qualifications she has received are BA English King's College London, MA Institute of Education, Bloomsbury and PGCE Goldsmiths College, New Cross. On being a teacher she said "I have a voice that children can hear me 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 General Secretary of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants 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

She was first elected to Parliament in 1997, being selected from an all-female shortlist. From May 2003 until the May 5, 2006 Cabinet reshuffle, she served at the Home Office as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for Criminal Justice and Offender Management. She is on the Education & Skills Select Committee.

[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. She suffers from multiple sclerosis. She is not married and has no children, being infertile. Her twin sister stood as a Parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats in Devizes in the 1992 General Election[citation needed].

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