A PORTRAIT of Derby South MP Margaret Beckett was unveiled in Parliament last night and will be hung in the corridors of Westminster alongside other political luminaries.

The picture took over a year to complete and was created by Antony Williams, who has also painted the Queen.

Mrs Beckett said last night: "It may seem a strange thing to say for a politician but I always hated having my picture taken.

"I actually felt kind of the same way when I saw the portrait so I'm going to wait and see what people think of it before deciding on it.

"One thing that really struck me though was that in the painting I have the hands of my mother."

It is not unusual for a well-known MP to be painted so their portrait can be added to the Commons art collection.

MP Frank Doran is chairman of the Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art, which commissions such portraits, and said that MPs on his group had been unanimous in thinking Mrs Beckett should be represented.

He said: "She has had a long and very distinguished parliamentary career over many years."

Mrs Beckett has been MP for Derby South since 1983, previously being a Lincoln MP for five years, and has held senior positions in the Labour Party.

After Labour leader John Smith's death in 1994, she was briefly Leader of the Opposition. Under Tony Blair, she served as Environment Secretary and in 2006 as Foreign Secretary.

After that she was Gordon Brown's Housing Minister and also served as the chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

Other people featured in the collection include all Kings and Queens, Prime Ministers and House of Commons Speakers.

Among the other parliamentarians recently painted for the collection are Neil Kinnock, Paddy Ashdown, David Blunkett, Ken Clarke and Iain Duncan Smith.