Hughes was born in the Monmouthshire town of Pontllanfraith located in the valley north of his later constituency of Newport and worked as a miner from 1940 until 1943, completing grammar school at Pontllanfraith.
After demobilisation in 1946, Hughes became a Labour Party member and moved to Coventry where he worked as a manager for the Standard Motor Company, where he obtained a degree from Ruskin College, Oxford and became an administrator for Standard Motor from 1957 until 1966.