Paul Goggins

Minister of State for Northern Ireland
Minister of State for Northern Ireland
	In office; 8 May 2007 – 11 May 2010
Prime Minister	Tony Blair; Gordon Brown;
Preceded by	David Hanson
Succeeded by	Hugo Swire
Member of Parliament; for Wythenshawe and Sale East
	In office; 1 May 1997 – 7 January 2014
Preceded by	Constituency created
Succeeded by	Mike Kane
Personal details
Born	Paul Gerard Goggins; 16 June 1953; Manchester, England
Died	7 January 2014 (aged 60); Salford, England
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Wyn Bartley (m. 1977)
Children	3
Education	UCE Birmingham Manchester Metropolitan University;
Website	Official website

Paul Gerard Goggins^[1] (16 June 1953 – 7 January 2014) was a British Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wythenshawe and Sale East from 1997 until his death in January 2014. He was also previously a Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office.

Early life

Paul Goggins was born in

Care of Children and Young People in 1976. Later, he earned a Certificate of Qualification in Social Work from the Manchester Polytechnic in 1982.^{[citation needed}

]

He worked as a child care worker with the 'Liverpool Catholic Social Services' for a year in 1974, before becoming an officer in charge at the

Salford in 1984. He became the national director for Church Action on Poverty, a national church-based campaigning organisation, in 1989 where he remained until his election to Westminster

.

Political career

He served as a councillor in the City of Salford from 1990 to 1998. He was elected to the House of Commons at the 1997 general election for the newly created Wythenshawe and Sale East seat vacated by the retirement of Alf Morris, the former Labour MP for Manchester Wythenshawe. Goggins held the safe Labour seat with a majority of 15,019 and remained the MP there for almost 17 years. He made his maiden speech on 20 May 1997.^[2]

He served on the

Department of Health

in 1999.

In 2000 he was appointed PPS to the

Secretary of State for Education and Employment David Blunkett, and he remained Blunketts's PPS following the 2001 General Election in his new position as Home Secretary

. It is during this period that, according to Blunkett, Goggins was lumbered with the nickname 'Mrs Goggins'.

He was promoted to the government of

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home Office with the role of prisons and probation minister. He became the parliamentary under Secretary for State with responsibility for the voluntary and community sector. He forged links with various community and voluntary sector organisations such as ARVAC The Association for Research in the Voluntary and Community Sector.^[3] In May 2006, he was appointed as a junior minister at the Northern Ireland Office. He was the co-founder of the All Party Parliamentary Friends of CAFOD

group and was Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group on poverty.

Goggins opposed

better source needed

]