Former Labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley has died aged 93.
Hattersley was born in Sheffield in 1932 into a working-class family and went on to build a long and influential political career after studying economics at the University of Hull.
He entered Parliament in 1964 as Labour MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook, a seat he held for more than three decades, serving the constituency for 32 years.
Later known to many readers as a respected Daily Mail columnist, Lord Hattersley also held a number of senior government roles during Harold Wilson’s premiership. Among them were employment minister and deputy defence minister in the 1960s.
He was appointed minister of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1974 to 1976 under Wilson, and became a privy councillor the following year.
From 1976 to 1979, Hattersley served in James Callaghan’s cabinet as secretary of state for prices and consumer protection.
He became Labour’s deputy leader in 1983 under Neil Kinnock, after the party’s second devastating defeat to Margaret Thatcher. He held the role until 1992. While their work taking on the hard-Left and confronting Militant, a Trotskyist group within Labour, did not result in victory against the Conservatives in 1987 or John Major in 1992, it would serve as the building blocks for Sir Tony Blair’s 1997 victory.
However, Lord Hattersley was one of New Labour’s biggest critics, accusing Sir Tony of abandoning the party’s fundamental vow to take on inequality. In 1997, he left the House of Commons and was made Baron Hattersley of Sparkbrook, retiring to the House of Lords.
As well as working as a newspaper columnist, Lord Hattersley released more than 20 books, including histories, memoirs and biographies.
In 1964, he was elected as the Labour MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook, a constituency he would represent for more than 32 years
The politician appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1986, and a puppet of Lord Hattersley also featured on Spitting Image, exaggerating his speech impediment.
However, he responded in good humour and is said to have praised the show for ‘putting the spit in Spitting Image’.
In 1956, he married Molly Loughran, but they divorced in 2013.
According to court documents, they had separated five years earlier and the relationship had ‘irretrievably broken down’. He then wed Maggie Pearlstine, his literary agent, who survives him. He had no children.
Last night Sir Keir Starmer described him as a ‘giant of the Labour movement’.
He wrote on X: ‘Roy Hattersley was a giant of the Labour movement.
‘Through decades of service, including as deputy leader and a minister, he never lost his belief in a more equal Britain.
‘My thoughts are with his wife Maggie and his family.’
Former Labour strategist, Alastair Campbell, paid tribute, describing Lord Hattersley as ‘a fine mind and gifted writer, a loyal and hard-working deputy to Neil Kinnock at a vital time in Labour history, and a critical friend to New Labour’.
He added: ‘Sheffield Wednesday to the very end! RIP Roy.’
Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell said he had ‘shaped the Labour Party and British politics’.
She added: ‘He was a giant of our movement and of that generation of politicians. I met him a few times and he was always kind, thoughtful and full of sound advice.’
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said Lord Hattersley had spent a ‘life devoted to politics, public duty and writing’.
And Nigel Evans, former Conservative MP, described him as ‘one of the genuine Old Labour politicians, fiercely academic with his true roots in support of working people’.
