Adam Ingram (Labour politician)

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For the member of the Scottish Parliament, see Adam Ingram (SNP politician).
The Right Honourable
Adam Ingram
Minister of State for the Armed Forces
In office
7 June 2001 – 29 June 2007
Prime Minister Tony Blair
Preceded by John Spellar
Succeeded by Bob Ainsworth
Minister of State for Northern Ireland
In office
2 May 1997 – 7 June 2001
Prime Minister Tony Blair
Preceded by Michael Ancram
Succeeded by Jane Kennedy
Member of Parliament
for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow
In office
12 June 1987 – 12 April 2010
Preceded by Constituency created
Succeeded by Michael McCann
Personal details
Born (1947-02-01) 1 February 1947 (age 77)
Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality British
Political party Labour
Alma mater Open University

Adam Paterson Ingram (born 1 February 1947) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow from 1987 to 2010.

Early life

Ingram attended Cranhill Senior Secondary School in Cranhill, Glasgow a year below Archy Kirkwood, Baron Kirkwood of Kirkhope and is a graduate of the Open University. He became a trade union official with NALGO from 1977 to 1987 after several years working as a computer programmer/analyst from 1967 to 1977.[1] A Justice of the Peace and former chairman of East Kilbride Constituency Labour Party, Ingram was East Kilbride District Councillor from 1980 to 1987 and leader of the District Council from 1984 to 1987.

Parliamentary career

Ingram was the Labour candidate for Strathkelvin and Bearsden in 1983, but entered the Commons following the 1987 election and during this parliamentary term acted as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Neil Kinnock. After Labour's landslide election victory in 1997 he was appointed Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office with responsibilities including Security.

In 2001 he became Armed Forces Minister at the Ministry of Defence, a position he held until Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007. He was the longest serving Defence Minister in British history and is a member of the Privy Council.

On 27 March 2009, Ingram announced that he would stand down at the next general election.[2]

Controversies

Ingram applied for an interim interdict to prevent the publication of Respect politician George Galloway's book I'm Not the Only One (2004). Galloway's text stated that Ingram "played the flute in a sectarian, anti-Catholic, Protestant-supremacist Orange Order band". Ingham's opinion that this was in bad faith and defamatory, although Ingram's lawyers conceded that for a year as a teenager he had been a member of a junior Orange Lodge in Barlanark, Glasgow, and had attended three parades. The Judge, Lord Kingarth, decided to refuse an interim interdict, that the balance of the arguments favoured Galloway's publisher, and that the phrase "sectarian, anti-Catholic, Protestant-supremacist" was fair comment on that organisation. Although Ingram was not and never had been a flute-player, the defending advocate observed that "playing the flute carries no obvious defamatory imputation ... it is not to the discredit of anyone that he plays the flute." The judge ruled that Ingram should pay the full court costs of the hearing.[3]

In 2009 Ingram declared outside earnings of £170,000, the largest of any Scottish MP. In the same year it was shown that letters in the local press defending these earnings were forged.[4]

In June 2010 at the public inquiry into the beating to death of Baha Mousa in custody he conceded that he had misled MPs when he was Armed Forces Minister over British troops' hooding of Iraqi prisoners. He had assured the then head of the Parliamentary joint committee on human rights, Jean Corston in June 2004, that prisoners were only hooded during transportation but had received documents in September 2003 that showed that Mousa had been hooded, on the advice of interrogation experts for nearly 24 of the 36 hours that he spent in custody.[5][6][7][8]

In December 2010 he was cleared of any wrongdoing by the Standards and Privileges Committee after the Cash for Influence Scandal, but criticised for bad judgement.[9][10]

Personal life

Ingram married Maureen McMahon in 1970.[1]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Candidate: Adam Ingram BBC News
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Senior Scottish MP in forged letters mystery Herald Scotland, 28 February 2009
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (subscription required)
  9. ↑ Hoon, Byers and Caborn rebuked over lobbying breaches BBC News, 9 December 2010
  10. ↑ Ex-ministers rebuked over lobbying guardian.co.uk, 10 December 2010

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for East Kilbride
1987 – 2005		 Constituency abolished
Parliament of the United Kingdom
New constituency Member of Parliament for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow
2005 – 2010		 Succeeded by
Michael McCann
Political offices
Preceded by
???
 Minister of State for the Armed Forces
2001–2007		 Succeeded by
Bob Ainsworth
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