Hughes was unsuccessful as a candidate for
Stepney and Poplar in the
1979 general election. In 1980 Hughes was elected to the
Greater London Council representing
Croydon Central, serving until 1986. He was the Conservative candidate in the
1983 Bermondsey by-election, and contested that constituency's successor seat of
Southwark and Bermondsey at the
1983 general election. In 1987 he was elected as the
Member of Parliament (MP) for
Harrow West. He successfully defended his seat at the
1992 election but at the
1997 election his 18,000 majority swung to a Labour majority of 1,240 votes for
Gareth Thomas. Hughes' Parliamentary Aide in the Commons until May 1997 was fellow Harrow politician, Councillor
Mark Versallion. He served as a Government Whip in 1993 when the
Maastricht bill went through the
House, and was promoted to
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the
Office of Public Service and Science in the
Cabinet Office in 1994 with responsibility for the Science Research Councils and the Medical Research Council. On 6 March 1995, Hughes resigned as Minister responsible for the
Citizen's Charter over an affair with a constituency worker who had come to him for help from an abusive relationship. Hughes confessed the affair and resigned when he believed that the liaison was about to be exposed in a Sunday newspaper. He opposed the Conservative party line in 1996 by supporting a total ban on handguns in the wake of the
Dunblane Massacre. Robert Hughes is a keen supporter of
Land value tax to eliminate income and sales taxes. == Post-political career ==