Margaret Beckett, English metallurgist and politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Dame Margaret Mary Beckett (née Jackson; born 15 January 1943) is a British politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Derby South since 1983. A member of the Labour Party, she became Britain's first female Foreign Secretary in 2006 and served in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Tony Blair throughout his tenure. Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1992 to 1994, she briefly served as Leader of the Opposition and acting Leader of the Labour Party following John Smith's death.
Beckett was first elected to Parliament in October 1974 for Lincoln and held junior positions in the governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. She lost her seat in 1979, but returned to the House of Commons in 1983, this time representing Derby South. She was appointed to Neil Kinnock's Shadow Cabinet shortly afterward; she was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in 1992, becoming the first woman to hold that role. When John Smith died in 1994, Beckett became the first woman to lead the Labour Party, although Tony Blair won the election to replace Smith shortly afterwards and assumed the substantive leadership.
After Labour returned to power in 1997, Beckett became a member of Tony Blair's Cabinet initially as President of the Board of Trade. She later served as Leader of the House of Commons and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, before becoming Foreign Secretary in 2006, the first woman to hold that position, and—after Margaret Thatcher—the second woman to hold one of the Great Offices of State. Following Blair's resignation as Prime Minister in 2007, Beckett was not initially given a position by new Prime Minister Gordon Brown; after she had spent a period on the backbenches, Brown appointed her to his cabinet as Minister of State for Housing and Planning in 2008, before she left the government for the last time in 2009.
Beckett holds the record for the female MP with the longest service overall (Harriet Harman has longer continuous service) and is the only sitting MP who served in the Labour governments of the 1970s. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2013 New Year Honours for public and political service. On 26 March 2022 Beckett announced that she would stand down at the next general election.