Doug Henderson - Parliamentary Career

Parliamentary Career

He was the chairman of the Scottish Labour Party in 1984 and was elected to the House of Commons at the 1987 General Election for Newcastle North in Tyneside following the deselection of the sitting Labour MP Robert Brown. Henderson held the seat with a majority of 5,243, and in the 2005 election, he received 50% of the vote with a majority of 7,023; this was down from a majority of 14,450 and 60.2% share in 2001.

He was promoted to the frontbench by Neil Kinnock in 1988 as a spokesman on trade and industry, until he moved under the new leadership of John Smith to serve as a spokesman on the environment in 1992. Following Smith's death in 1994 he was moved by Tony Blair to become the Deputy shadow Leader of the House of Commons and spokesman on John Major's citizens' charter. In 1995 he became a home affairs spokesman. When the first Blair government was elected at the 1997 General Election he was made a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with the brief of Minister for Europe, before moving to the Ministry of Defence in 1998 as the Minister for the armed forces. He was sacked in 1999 amid speculation that his close association with and perceived loyalty to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown eventually cost him his government job, and he became an increasingly outspoken backbencher. In May 2006, Henderson joined other Labour MPs in urging Prime Minister Tony Blair to set a date to step down following the dismissal of Charles Clarke as Home Secretary. He stated that "Quite frankly, Tony Blair has done his bit and it is now time for him to tell us when he is going to go." He is the vice chairman of the all party groups on the Philippines; Malaysia; and the chocolate and confectionery industry. He spoke in favour of government plans to replace Trident in the debate on 14 March 2007.

Henderson is also employed as a member of fast food chain McDonald's advisory board, work that "normally takes about 10 days a year and a bit of preparation." for which he receives a salary of £25,000 per year. This information was revealed after MPs were required to supply details of non-Parliamentary earnings.

During the coverage of leaked Parliamentary expenses details in 2009, it was revealed that Henderson claimed £800 for telephone calls from a house in Anstruther, Scotland in 2007/08. Henderson confirmed that he lives and works at his home in Fife, more than 150 miles from his constituency in Newcastle. The Sunday Telegraph newspaper rated him as "one of the worst for value-for-money," in their assessment of MPs "based on how much work they did in parliament compared to their overall expenses." The MP was present at half of House of Commons votes in 2007/08 and claimed £151,860 in expenses.

On 4 July 2009, Henderson announced his intention to stand down at the next general election.