Margaret Herbison

Margaret McCrorie Herbison (known as Peggy Herbison) (11 March 1907 – 29 December 1996) was a Scottish Labour politician.

Educated at Bellshill Academy and the University of Glasgow, her early career was spent as a teacher of English and history and as an economics lecturer for the National Council of Labour Colleges. The daughter of a miner, she would later serve on the Miners' Welfare Commission. She was elected as Labour Member of Parliament for North Lanarkshire at the 1945 general election, defeating the Conservative incumbent, future Deputy Speaker of the House William Anstruther-Gray. She held the seat until she retired at the 1970 general election.

In government, she held office as Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland from 1950 to 1951, as Minister of Pensions and National Insurance from 1964 to 1966, and as Minister of Social Security from 1966 to 1967. She was opposition spokesperson on Scotland (1951–1956, 1959–1962), Education (1956–1959), and Pensions (1958–1959 and 1962–1964).

She was a Member of Labour National Executive Committee, and Labour Party Chairman in 1957. In the House of Commons, she was Chairman of Select Committee on Overseas Aid in 1969-70. She was a British delegate to the Council of Europe.

A lifelong member of the Church of Scotland, from 1970 to 1971 she became the first woman to serve as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

She died of cancer on 29 December 1996 at St Mary's Hospital, Lanark.

References

• The Times House of Commons 1945. 1945. 
• The Times House of Commons 1950. 1950. 
• The Times House of Commons 1955. 1955. 
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
• Dalyell, Tam (2004). "Herbison, Margaret McCrorie [Peggy] (1907–1996)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/64016. Retrieved 2009-09-13.  (subscription or UK public library membership required)

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Margaret Herbison

v t e Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions Ministers of Pensions Barnes Hodge Worthington-Evans Macpherson Tryon Roberts Tryon Roberts Tryon Hudson Ramsbotham Womersley Paling Hynd Buchanan Marquand Isaacs Heathcoat-Amory Ministers of Social Insurance/National Insurance Jowitt Hore-Belisha Griffiths Summerskill Peake Ministers of Pensions and National Insurance Peake Boyd-Carpenter Macpherson Wood Herbison Ministers of Social Security Herbison Hart Secretaries of State for Social Services Crossman Joseph Castle Ennals Jenkin Fowler Moore Secretaries of State for Social Security Moore Newton Lilley Harman Darling Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions Darling Smith Johnson Blunkett Hutton Hain Purnell Cooper Duncan Smith