Jacqueline Jill "Jacqui" Smith (born 3 November 1962) is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Redditch since 1997, and notably served as the first ever female Home Secretary, thus making her the third woman to hold one of the Great Offices of State — after Margaret Thatcher (Prime Minister) and Margaret Beckett (Foreign Secretary).
She was one of the MPs investigated by the parliamentary commissioner for standards over inappropriate expense claims, though no action was taken. On 2 June 2009, it emerged she would stand down at the Cabinet reshuffle on 5 June 2009.
Early life
Born in Malvern, Worcestershire, Smith attended Dyson Perrins High School in Malvern. Her parents were teachers. Her local MP, Conservative backbencher Sir Michael Spicer, recalled in Parliament in 2003 how he had first met her when he was addressing the sixth form at The Chase School, where Smith's mother was a teacher. "So great was my eloquence that she immediately rushed off and joined the Labour Party." Smith went on to study for a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Hertford College, Oxford. After Oxford, she studied for a PGCE at Worcester College of Higher Education.
Working as a school teacher, from 1986 to 1988 she taught Economics at Arrow Vale High School in Redditch Subsequently she taught children at Worcester Sixth Form College, before becoming Head of Economics and GNVQ Co-ordinator at Haybridge High School, Hagley in 1990.
Political career
Member of Parliament
Smith was selected to stand for election for Labour through an all-women shortlist. This method of selection was subsequently declared illegal in January 1996 as it breached sex discrimination laws. Despite the ruling she remained in place as the candidate for the following year's election.
She was elected MP for Redditch at the 1997 general election, as part of a (then) record number of female MPs elected to the House of Commons who were pejoratively tagged "Blair Babes". Smith was re-elected in 2001 and 2005. Due to boundary changes, she currently has a majority of 1,948 (4.6% of the 2005 vote). This is the smallest majority of any current Cabinet member and makes her a prime target for the Conservatives in the next general election.
Smith entered the Government in July 1999 as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Education and Employment, working with the Minister for School Standards Estelle Morris. She then became a Minister of State at the Department for Health after the 2001 general election. She was appointed as the Government's deputy Minister for Women in 2003, working alongside Secretary of State Patricia Hewitt. In this role she published the Government's proposals for Civil Partnerships, a system designed to offer same-sex couples an opportunity to gain legal recognition for their relationship with an associated set of rights and responsibilities.
Minister for Schools
Following the 2005 general election, Smith was appointed to serve as the Minister of State for Schools in the Department for Education and Skills, replacing Stephen Twigg who had lost his seat. She received praise in this role – often outperforming her superior Ruth Kelly. Teacher trade union sources stated that Smith "talked to us on our level".
Government Chief Whip
In the 2006 reshuffle she was appointed as the Government's Chief Whip. In a period when supporters of Gordon Brown were pushing Prime Minister Tony Blair to resign, she was successfully able to calm the situation down. The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson described her as being effective at "making peace between the warring Blair and Brown factions".
Smith was regarded as a loyal Blairite during Tony Blair's premiership, a position reflected in her voting record, and she was brought to tears by Blair's farewell appearance in the House of Commons.
Home Secretary
Smith was appointed Home Secretary in Gordon Brown's first Cabinet reshuffle of 28 June 2007. Just one day into her new job bombs were found in London and a terrorist attack took place in Glasgow the following day.
On 24 January 2008, she announced new powers for the police, including the proposal to hold "terrorist suspects" or those "linked to terrorism" for forty-two days without charge. In the same month Smith was involved in controversy when she admitted that she would not feel safe on the streets of London at night. Such statements were compounded by her suggestion that walking on streets at night was not "a thing that people do". Critics suggested her statements were an admission that the government had failed to tackle crime effectively. Smith also introduced legislation to toughen the prostitution laws of England and Wales, making it a criminal offence to pay for sex with a prostitute controlled by a pimp, with the possibility that anyone caught paying for sex with an illegally trafficked woman could face rape charges.
Smith will introduce a crime mapping scheme which will allow for citizens of England and Wales to access information about local crime information and how to combat crime. As Home Secretary, she was pleased to announce that minor crime has dropped year on year under the Labour government, and continued to do so in 2008. Her officials, however, acknowledge that major crimes such as serious assault, rape and murder have increased year-on-year under the Labour government and are at their highest level since at least 1997.
Smith managed to pass the 42 day detention law plans in the House of Commons, despite heavy opposition. The House of Lords voted overwelmingly against the law, with some of the Lords reportedly characterising it as "fatally flawed, ill thought through and unnecessary", stating that "it seeked to further erode fundamental legal and civil rights".
When Damian Green was arrested in his commons office, Smith stated that she was not informed of the impending arrest. The Metropolitan Police said that Green was "arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office and aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office". A junior Home Office official Christopher Galley was later arrested regarding the same alleged offences as Green, and was released on bail. He was not charged, but he was suspended from his Home Office job while the investigation continued. He was later sacked from his position for gross misconduct. Green did not dispute having dealings with the Home Office official.
In March 2009 a leaked poll of Labour Party members revealed that Smith was considered to be the worst performing member of the cabinet, with only 56% of her party believing she was doing a good job.
National identity legislation
In May 2009, Smith announced that the cost of introducing the National Identity Card project had risen to an estimated £5.3 billion, and that they are first to become compulsory for foreign students and airport staff. The cards would be made available from high-street shops at an estimated cost of £60. Smith defended her decision to use high street shops, and stated that the hope was to make enrollment in the scheme a less intimidating experience, and to make the cards easier to access. She has claimed, despite evidence to the contrary, that the majority of the population is in favour of the scheme. In another privacy-related issue, Smith said she was disappointed at the European Court of Human Rights' decision to strike down a law allowing the government to store the DNA and fingerprints of people with no criminal record, in December 2008 an estimated 850,000 such DNA samples were being held in England and Wales. Her compromise was to scale down the length of time that data could be kept, with a maximum limit of 12 years. A number of commentators felt that this went against the spirit of the Court's decision.
Drug policy
On 19 July 2007 Smith admitted to smoking cannabis a few times in Oxford in the 1980s. "I did break the law... I was wrong... drugs are wrong," she said. Asked why students today should listen when she urged them not to try the drug, she said that the dangers of cannabis use had become clearer, including mental health issues and the increasing strength of the drug over the past 25 years. Smith's admission was made public the day after Gordon Brown appointed her head of a new government review of the UK Drugs strategy.
In May 2008, against the recommendations of her own scientific advisers, Smith reversed the government's 2004 decision to downgrade cannabis to a class C drug, returning it back to the higher penalization status of class B, with the law change taking effect on 26 January 2009.
In February 2009 Jacqui Smith was accused by her most senior expert drugs adviser Professor David Nutt of making a political decision in rejecting the scientific advice to downgrade ecstasy from a class A drug. The advisory council on the misuse of drugs (ACMD) report on ecstasy, based on a 12-month study of 4,000 academic papers, concluded that it is nowhere near as dangerous as other class A drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine, and should be downgraded to class B alongside amphetamines and cannabis. The advice was not followed; the government saying that it was "not prepared to send a message to young people that we take ecstasy less seriously". Smith was also widely criticised by the scientific community for bullying Professor David Nutt into apologising for his comments that, in the course of a normal year, more people died from fall
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