Don Touhig

Tuhig contested the Richmond and Barnes seat in the 1992 general election, coming third for Labour behind the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. He was subsequently elected to Parliament in a by-election on 16 February 1995, to replace Neil Kinnock (party leader from 1983 to 1992), who had resigned. From 1996–7, he was on the Welsh Affairs Select Committee. He served as parliamentary private secretary to Gordon Brown and as a whip before becoming a minister. He had to resign in 1999 when he confessed to receiving a leaked Social Security Select Committee report on Child benefit.[2] He was later suspended for three days from the Commons.[3] He was succeeded by John Healey. He was a junior minister at the Ministry of Defence, with special responsibility for veterans, but left government in the May 2006 reshuffle.[4] He was made a Member of the Privy Council on 19 July 2006.

In Paul Flynn's 1999 book Dragons and Poodles, he was described as being the "seamstress-in-chief of stitch ups", that he could be "ambitious" and "can be pompous".[5]

On 29 January 2010, Touhig announced that he would stand down at the 2010 General Election.[6]

On 28 June 2010, Touhig was made a life peer as Baron Touhig, of Islwyn and Glansychan in the County of Gwent.[7]