Veronica Mary Tutt Hardstaff Billings (born 23 October 1941) is a British politician, who has served as a City councillor in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

and as a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

(MEP). A member of the Labour Party, she is on the left of the party.

Education and career

Hardstaff went to the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

where she obtained a degree in German, and then studied at the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne () is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in 1388. It closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany with around 45,187 students. The Universit ...

. Hardstaff worked as a teacher of German and French, first at High Storrs Girls' Grammar School in

, then at St Peter's Secondary Modern School. In 1971 she was elected as a Labour Party candidate to Sheffield City Council in Walkley ward, becoming a full-time councillor; she served for seven years. In 1977 she went back to work at Knottingley High School, moving in 1979 to the Frecheville School in Sheffield, and from 1986 to the Birley School. At the 1992 UK general election she was the Labour Party candidate for the Sheffield Hallam constituency, but finished third.

1994 European election

At the

1994 European Parliament election The 1994 European Parliamentary election was a European election held across the 12 European Union member states in June 1994. This election saw the merge of the European People's Party and European Democrats, an increase in the overall numbe ...

, Hardstaff was the Labour Party candidate in Lincolnshire and Humberside South. This constituency was made up of seven

constituencies An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

for the United Kingdom Parliament, of which six were held by the Conservative Party. The Labour Party considered winning this election would be taking "a prize Tory scalp". In the end, Hardstaff was elected as

with a majority of 13,745.

European Parliament

She was chosen by her colleagues as Chairwoman of the European Parliamentary Labour Party. In January 1995, she abstained from signing a declaration against a change in Clause IV of the Labour Party constitution, despite 36 Labour MEPs doing so. With an agricultural constituency she took up farming issues, calling for a new approach to food quality after the BSE scandal including stricter regulation of

intensive farming Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming (as opposed to extensive farming), conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of agriculture, both of arable farming, crop plants and of Animal husbandry, animals, with higher levels ...

. When Lincolnshire was described as a prosperous area, she wrote to object based on the low wages paid to some farmworkers.Letters, ''New Statesman'', 3 April 1998. She was also Vice-Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee between the European Parliament and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

from 1995. For the

1999 European Parliament election The 1999 European Parliament election was a European election for all 626 members of the European Parliament held across the 15 European Union member states on 10, 11 and 13 June 1999. The voter turn-out was generally low, except in Belgium and ...

, the electoral system was changed to list-based proportional representation. Hardstaff was placed at sixth out of seven on the regional list for

Yorkshire and the Humber Yorkshire and the Humber is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It is one of the three regions covering Northern England, alongside the North West England and North East England regio ...

, a place which made it practically impossible for her to be re-elected; this low placing was attributed to her alliance with the left.Mike Phipps,
Euro carve-up dumps left
, ''Labour Left Briefing'', November 1998. In the election, Labour won only three seats in the region.

Sheffield City council

In 2002, Hardstaff was elected to Sheffield City Council for a second term, from Walkley ward. In May 2005 she was appointed to the cabinet of Sheffield as member for Children's Services, responsible both for education and for social services to children. She supported plans to bring in a City Academy to replace an existing secondary school, sponsored by a Christian educational charity; she also defended the use of the

Private Finance Initiative The private finance initiative (PFI) was a United Kingdom government procurement policy aimed at creating "public–private partnerships" (PPPs) where private firms are contracted to complete and manage public projects. Initially launched in 1992 ...

as a pragmatic way of supporting investment. She left the Sheffield cabinet in May 2006 and in May 2007 was defeated in her re-election bid in Walkley. She stood again in Walkley ward in 2008, but was defeated. At the same election Hardstaff's brother, Chris Tutt, was re-elected to Sheffield City Council, in

Mosborough Mosborough is a village in the City of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. Historically part of Derbyshire, its name being a linguistic blend of 'moor' and 'borough'. During the late 19th century and 20th century, the village was noted for ...

ward, for the Liberal Democrats.

Personal life

She married in 1964 and had a son and daughter, but divorced in 1977, retaining her married name. Since 2007 she has been married to Rev. Canon

Alan Billings Alan Roy Billings (born 7 October 1942) is an Anglican priest and Labour politician who served as the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner from 2014 to 2024. Early life and education Billings was born into a working-class family in L ...

, the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire, and Deputy Leader from 1980-86 of Sheffield City Council.

References

*"Who's Who", A & C Black {{DEFAULTSORT:Hardstaff, Veronica 1941 births Living people Alumni of the University of Manchester Councillors in Sheffield Labour Party (UK) councillors Labour Party (UK) MEPs MEPs for England 1994–1999 Labour Party (UK) parliamentary candidates University of Cologne alumni 20th-century women MEPs for England Women councillors in England