Labour’s Margaret Hodge to step down as MP for Barkingon December 2, 2021 at 10:40 pm

Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge has announced she will be stepping down as an MP at the next general election, after 27 years in Parliament.

The MP for Barking said she “loved the job” and that the decision to leave had been “really tough”.

During her time in the House of Commons she served as a minister in several departments and later chaired the powerful Public Accounts Committee

Fellow Labour MP Angela Eagle said she had a “record to be proud of”.

In a video, the long-serving MP thanked local party members for the “warmth, friendship, support and love you’ve shown me over the years”.

She said her proudest achievement was defeating Nick Griffin – leader of the far-right British National Party – when he ran against her in 2010.

She described the campaign as “a really hard bit of work” but “rewarding”.

Dame Margaret was elected to the Barking constituency in 1994 and when Labour came to power in 1997 she was given ministerial roles in the education, culture and work and pensions departments.

However, she has also become known for her robust questioning of witnesses when chairing the Public Accounts Committee – the body of MPs that scrutinises public spending.

In 2012, she accused Starbucks, Amazon and Google of not paying enough tax in the UK, and suggested customer boycott the companies.

She also labelled BBC bosses as “either naïve or totally incompetent” and told HMRC senior civil servants she “wanted to put a bomb under you guys”.

While she won plaudits from some for her interrogations, others accused her of “grandstanding” and one senior civil servant said she conducted a “theatrical exercise in public humiliation”.

She stood down from her role on the committee in 2015 and put herself forward to be Labour’s candidate for the Mayor of London job.

However she later pulled out saying London should have “a non-white mayor”.

She became a prominent critic of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party and later accused him of being in “permanent denial” about anti-Semitism in the party.

A number of Labour MPs paid tribute to the outgoing MP with former deputy party leader Harriet Harman describing her as an “outstanding local government leader, fierce opponent of fascism and anti-Semitism, scourge of tax evaders, strong sister and forever Labour”.

Liz Kendall said she had been “an inspiration… passionate, principled, tough, warm, feisty, fun!”

While Peter Kyle described Dame Margaret as “courageous, driven, and full of love and laughter” adding “it tugs at my heartstrings that she’s standing down”.