Phil Woolas - Parliamentary Career

Parliamentary Career

He first won his seat for Labour in the 1997 general election, having contested the predecessor Littleborough and Saddleworth seat at a by-election in 1995, which was marked by Labour's particularly vicious and personal campaign, attacking the Liberal Democrat candidate, Chris Davies, as "high on tax and soft on drugs". Lord Mandelson admitted in his autobiography that they’d gone “on the attack”, writing “After the campaign was over, not only our opponents but some in Labour would denounce our ‘negative’ tactics in highlighting Lib Dem front-runner Chris Davies’ support for higher taxes and a Royal Commission to liberalise drugs laws. For tactical reasons, I felt we had had little choice.”

In 1999 Woolas became parliamentary private secretary to Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, a Transport Minister, and became a whip in 2001.

In 2003 he was made Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, and in 2005 moved to the Office of the Deputy Minister to become Minister of State with responsibility for local government, later moving to the newly-created Department for Communities and Local Government with the same responsibilities. During this time he acquired a reputation for evading any questions surrounding the failings of the Local Government Ombudsman.

On 29 June 2007 he became Minister for the Environment at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He had responsibility for climate change, energy and sustainable development.

In September 2008 Woolas was criticised by the Daily Mail for giving a House of Commons pass to Deborah Dunlop. Dunlop was at the time married to Steve Morgan, who had been Woolas's wife Tracey Allen's business partner in lobbyists Morgan Allen Moore. Dunlop was the director of a new environmental lobbying company’. Bloggers repeated a report in The Mail on Sunday that the lobbying industry’s regulatory body said that Ms Dunlop’s arrangement with Environment Minister Mr Woolas clearly breached its code of conduct banning political consultants from holding a Commons pass or having ‘any involvement on behalf of a political party’. However, Ms Dunlop lodged a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission, and the Daily Mail issued a clarification that the recently established lobbying company was in fact dormant during the incident. The paper also agreed that "A suggestion she had broken the code of the Association of Professional Political Consultants was the opinion of an individual member and not of the Association itself" and apologised for any misunderstanding

In October 2006, Woolas was involved in the United Kingdom debate over veils, particularly the case of Aishah Azmi, a Muslim teaching assistant who wore an Islamic veil in class.

In February 2008, he raised the question of inter-cousin marriage as a cause of the high incidence of disability within predominantly Pakistani culture. The debate was welcomed by Ann Cryer MP who cited incidences in her own constituency. This debate is still continuing

Following the cabinet re-shuffle of 3 October 2008, he was made Minister of State for Borders and Immigration at the Home Office and Minister of State for the Treasury.

In the United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009, Phil Woolas reportedly claimed expenses for items not allowed under the rules. Woolas said the items were on a receipt he submitted under food claims, but were not claimed themselves, and threatened a newspaper with legal action. The Legge enquiry into MPs' expenses cleared Phil Woolas.

In November 2008, Woolas attacked lawyers and charities working on behalf of asylum seekers, accusing them of undermining the law and "playing the system" by taking legal action.

In February 2010, following the accusations of bullying made against Gordon Brown and other members of the UK cabinet, Woolas was quoted as referring to the head of the National Bullying Helpline, Christine Pratt, as "this prat of a woman" in a radio interview.