[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 Wigan Children's Home in 1976.

He was promoted to the government of Tony Blair in 2003, where he was made the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home Office with the role of prisons and probation minister.

[4] Subsequently, in May 2013 the MP voted against the bill’s third and final reading,[5] opposing the legalisation of same-sex marriage within England and Wales.

He was also a member of the Christian socialist movement who broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 Thought for the Day slot on the Today programme.

In an interview on BBC Radio Five Live in 2004, he claimed his family was the inspiration for the "Mrs Goggins" character in the Postman Pat series.