Patricia Hewitt

Patricia Hewitt (2003)

Patricia Hewitt (born December 2, 1948 in Canberra , Australia ) is a British Labor Party politician who was , among other things, Minister for Trade and Industry and Minister of Health.

Life

Studies and professional activities

Patricia Hewitt, whose father Lenox Hewitt CEO of Qantas Airways , was brought up in Australia and studied after visiting the Church of England Grammar School in Canberra at the Australian National University (ANU) and at Newnham College of the University of Cambridge and at Nuffield College from the University of Oxford , each with a Masters degree. In 1970 she married David Julian Gibson-Watt, the son of long-time Conservative MP David Gibson-Watt .

After graduating, she became director of press and public relations at Age Concern , a national charity for the elderly and old , in 1971 , before moving to the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) as a women's rights officer in 1973, where she was secretary general between 1974 and 1983 was. During her work there, she wrote numerous specialist books that dealt with the living situation of older people, women and various civil rights .

In 1983 she worked for the then party and parliamentary group leader of the Labor Party, Neil Kinnock , first as a press officer and then from 1987 to 1989 as a political coordinator. She then was Associate Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a leading UK think tank , and Research Director of Andersen Consulting from 1994 to 1997 .

Member of the House of Commons and Minister

In the general election of May 1, 1997 , she was elected as a Labor Party candidate for the first time as a member of the House of Commons , where she represented the constituency of Leicester West until May 2010 .

In July 1998 she took over a government office as Economic Secretary to the Treasury for the first time , before she was Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry from July 1999 to June 2001.

As part of a cabinet reshuffle, Patricia Hewitt was promoted from Prime Minister Tony Blair to Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on June 8, 2001, succeeding Stephen Byers , who in turn became Minister of Transport, Local Government and the Regions. She held the office of Minister of Trade and Industry until May 2005 and was also Minister for Women in the second Blair cabinet.

In the course of a further government reshuffle, she was appointed Secretary of State for Health by Blair after winning the general election in 2005 on May 11, 2005 , replacing John Reid , who became Secretary of Defense, while she was in turn the previous Minister of Labor and Pensions succeeded Alan Johnson as Secretary of Commerce and Industry. After the inauguration of the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown as successor to Blair as Prime Minister, he resigned from the cabinet on June 28, 2007 and was replaced as Health Minister by Alan Johnson.

Activities in the private sector and controversy

After it was announced in January 2008 that it Special Advisor of Alliance Boots , one of the world's largest chemical and pharmaceutical companies, as well as the private equity -Unternehmens Cinven , which for the health care group Bupa , is funded hospitals in the UK, there was public criticism for her previous work as Minister of Health. She also became a member of the BT Group Board of Directors in March 2008 and served on the House of Commons Privilege Committee between August 2009 and May 2010.

In spring 2010 it became known that she was involved in the so-called cash for influence scandal . The magazine program Dispatches had revealed in bogus interviews that numerous MPs and ministers like them, Geoff Hoon , Stephen Byers, Richard Caborn and Adam Paterson Ingram were willing to accept a four-digit daily fee, although no consideration was provided. This meant that they in March 2010 by their membership in the group was suspended the Labor Party.

On February 27, 2014, Hewitt publicly apologized for the support the NCCL had temporarily given to the pedophile organization Pedophile Information Exchange in the 1970s . As a former Secretary General of the NCCL, she must take responsibility for this.

Publications

• Equality for women , 1974
• Rights for women , 1975
• Privacy, the information gatherers , 1977
• Income Tax & Sex Discrimination , 1979
• Privacy , 1980
• The abuse of power , 1982
• A Fair Cop , 1988
• A Cleaner, Faster London , 1989
• About Time , 1993
• Pebbles in the Sand , 1998
• Unfinished business , 2004

Web links

• Patricia Hewitt at Hansard (English)
• Entry in They Work For You
• Patricia Hewitt: Electoral history and profile ( Memento from August 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). In: The Guardian (accessed December 18, 2011)

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1. ↑ BBC website of February 27, 2014