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John Spellar

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The Right Honourable
The Lord Spellar
PC
Official portrait, 2017
Shadow Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
In office
8 October 2010 – 18 September 2015
LeaderEd Miliband
Harriet Harman
Preceded byChris Bryant
Succeeded byCatherine West
Comptroller of the Household
In office
5 October 2008 – 11 May 2010
Prime MinisterGordon Brown
Preceded byTommy McAvoy
Succeeded byAlistair Carmichael
Minister of State for Northern Ireland
In office
13 June 2003 – 10 May 2005
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byDes Browne
Succeeded byDavid Hanson
Minister of State for Transport
In office
8 June 2001 – 13 June 2003
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byThe Lord Macdonald of Tradeston
Succeeded byKim Howells
Minister of State for the Armed Forces
In office
29 July 1999 – 8 June 2001
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byDoug Henderson
Succeeded byAdam Ingram
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence
In office
6 May 1997 – 28 July 1999
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byThe Earl Howe
Succeeded byPeter Kilfoyle
Parliamentary offices
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Incumbent
Assumed office
12 August 2024
Life peerage
Member of Parliament
for Warley
Warley West (1992–1997)
In office
9 April 1992 – 30 May 2024
Preceded byPeter Archer
Succeeded byConstituency abolished
Member of Parliament
for Birmingham Northfield
In office
28 October 1982 – 13 May 1983
Preceded byJocelyn Cadbury
Succeeded byRoger King
Personal details
Born
John Francis Spellar

(1947-08-05) 5 August 1947 (age 77)
Bromley, Kent, England
Political partyLabour
Spouse
Anne Wilmot
​
​
(m. 1981; died 2003)​
Children1
Alma materSt Edmund Hall, Oxford

John Francis Spellar, Baron Spellar, PC (born 5 August 1947), is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Warley, formerly Warley West, from 1992 to 2024. A member of the Labour Party, he previously represented Birmingham Northfield from 1982 to 1983. He served as a minister in various departments between 1997 and 2005, and as Comptroller of the Household in the Whips' Office between 2008 and 2010. After Labour entered opposition, he served as a shadow Foreign Office minister from 2010 to 2015.

Early life

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Spellar was born in Bromley and educated at Dulwich College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He was Chairman of the Oxford University Labour Club in 1967.[1]

Spellar was the Political Officer of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU) from 1969 to 1992,[2] and was a speech-writer for general secretaries Frank Chapple and Eric Hammond.[1] As a young union officer he attended, along with John Golding and Roger Godsiff, the St Ermin's group of senior trade union leaders who organised to prevent the Bennite left taking over the party in the years 1981–1987.[3]

He was a councillor in the London Borough of Bromley between 1970 and 1974.[1]

Parliamentary career

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Spellar stood for the constituency of Bromley at the 1970 general election as Labour's youngest candidate.[1]

He was first elected to the House of Commons in the 1982 Birmingham Northfield by-election but lost at the 1983 General Election to the Conservative candidate, Roger King. At the 1987 general election he stood again for the same seat but was again unsuccessful against Roger King.[1] Spellar returned to the House of Commons in the 1992 general election becoming the MP for Warley West with a majority of 5,472, and was appointed an opposition whip. Following a period as opposition spokesman for Northern Ireland in 1994, he was moved to shadow Defence minister in 1995.[citation needed]

At the 1997 general election, Spellar was elected as MP for the new Warley constituency (as Warley West had been abolished in a boundary review). In the new Labour government, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence, being promoted to become Minister of State for the Armed Forces in 1999. In 2001, he was appointed to the Privy Council, as Minister of State for Transport in the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions[2] with rights to attend Cabinet. After the 2002 reshuffle, he became Minister of State at the Department for Transport, and moved to the Northern Ireland Office in 2003. He was banned from the offices of both the Mayor of Derry and the Mayor of Belfast during that year, because he supported the reinstatement to the British Army of convicted murderers Mark Wright and James Fisher of the Scots Guards.[4] He left the front benches in 2005, but in 2008, he rejoined the government as a whip (Comptroller of the Household) and served until Labour entered opposition in May 2010.[citation needed]

In November 2015, Spellar he suggested that his party leader Jeremy Corbyn should resign over the question of whether to conduct air strikes on ISIL in Syria.[5] Spellar supported Owen Smith in the 2016 Labour leadership election.[6]

In November 2017, Spellar was appointed as a member of the UK parliament delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.[7]

On 27 May 2024, Spellar announced he would step down at the 2024 United Kingdom general election.[8] He was an MP for 32 years.[9]

Peerage

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After standing down as an MP, Spellar was nominated for a life peerage in the 2024 Dissolution Honours.[10][11][12] He was created Baron Spellar, of Smethwick in the County of the West Midlands, on 12 August 2024.[13]

Other political activities

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Spellar is a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel.[14][15] He is a Director of the centre-right Labour grouping, Labour First,[16] and member of the Henry Jackson Society[17] Advisory Council and the Council on Geostrategy Advisory Board.[18]

Personal life

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Spellar was married to dentist Anne Wilmot from 1981 until her death in 2003.[19] They had a daughter.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Roth, Andrew; Criddle, Byron (1998). "John (Francis) SPELLAR WARLEY '97-" (PDF). Parliamentary Profiles: Four Volume Set. Parliamentary Profile Services Ltd. ISBN 9780900582431. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
  2. ^ a b Clark, Phil (2001). "John Spellar". building.co.uk. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
  3. ^ Hayter, Dianne (2004). "St Ermins group (act. 1981-1987)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/96690. Retrieved 26 April 2017. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ Greenslade, Roy (10 September 2003). "Remember Peter McBride?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 11 March 2015.
  5. ^ Jonathan Walker (27 November 2015). "Black Country Labour MP suggests Jeremy Corbyn should resign over Syria". Birmingham Mail. Retrieved 30 June 2016.
  6. ^ Smith, Mikey; Bloom, Dan (20 July 2016). "Which MPs are nominating Owen Smith in the Labour leadership contest?". Mirror. Retrieved 10 November 2018.
  7. ^ "Membership of the Delegation". UK Parliament. 14 November 2017. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  8. ^ "Labour's Warley MP John Spellar stands down before election". BBC News. 27 May 2024. Retrieved 27 May 2024.
  9. ^ Smith, Adam (27 May 2024). "'I've had a good run': Veteran Labour MP John Spellar to stand down this summer after 32 years". www.expressandstar.com. Retrieved 27 May 2024.
  10. ^ "No. 64480". The London Gazette (Supplement). 7 August 2024. p. 15222.
  11. ^ "Dissolution Peerages 2024". GOV.UK. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  12. ^ Whannel, Kate (4 July 2024). "Theresa May and 'bionic' MP awarded peerages". BBC News. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  13. ^ "No. 64489". The London Gazette. 16 August 2024. p. 15874.
  14. ^ "MPs flock to support Labour Israel group". The Jewish Chronicle. 22 September 2016.
  15. ^ Harpin, Lee (7 August 2019). "Dame Louise Ellman becomes new Labour Friends of Israel chair". Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
  16. ^ "Labour First Ltd Company Data". Companies House, UK. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  17. ^ "Advisory Council". Henry Jackson Society. Archived from the original on 23 September 2013. Retrieved 31 August 2013.
  18. ^ "Advisory Board". Council on Geostrategy. Retrieved 30 October 2024.
  19. ^ "Minister shocked by wife's death". BBC News. 22 October 2003. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Spellar.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament
for Birmingham Northfield
1982–1983 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of Parliament
for Warley West
1992–1997 		Constituency abolished
New constituency Member of Parliament
for Warley
1997–2024 		Constituency abolished
Political offices
Preceded by Minister of State for the Armed Forces
1999–2001 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Minister of State for Transport
2001–2003 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Comptroller of the Household
2008–2010 		Succeeded by
Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom
Preceded by Gentlemen
Baron Spellar 		Followed by
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