[1] Hughes was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland from March 1974 until July 1975, when he resigned in disagreement with the government's incomes policy.

Rather than the SNP, prime minister James Callaghan blamed unionist rebels on his own benches for ultimately bringing about the collapse of his government and opening the door to victory for Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives.

[4][5] Under his chairmanship the Anti-Apartheid Movement campaigned against the Thatcher government's refusal to impose sanctions against South Africa in the 1980s and organised the 1988 "Free Mandela" concert at Wembley Stadium which was televised by the BBC and broadcast around the world.

Hughes attended the independence celebrations in Namibia in 1990 and acted as an observer at South Africa's first democratic elections in April 1994.

[citation needed] Hughes was born on 3 January 1932,[6] and educated at Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen, and in South Africa, where he lived from 1947 until 1954 and worked as a draughtsman.