Eric Varley

Eric Graham Varley, Baron Varley, (11 August 1932 – 29 July 2008) was a British Labour Party politician and cabinet minister on the right-wing of the party. He was the Member of Parliament for Chesterfield from 1964 to 1984.

Early life

Eric Graham Varley was born in Poolsbrook, Derbyshire, to Frank and Eva (née Goring) Varley. His father was a coalminer. He left school at the age of fourteen in 1946. His mother did not wish for him to follow his father's line of work, and he began an early career at the iron works before training as an engineer. He was an accomplished football player as a young man who played semi-professionally. He initially aspired to play professionally, and it was speculated that he could have done so. However, he decided to start a career in politics, partially at the behest of trade unionist Bert Wynn.

Political career

Varley was active in the National Union of Mineworkers, and became a branch secretary of the union in 1955, joining the Labour Party the same year. After a period at Ruskin College, Varley won the NUM nomination to be the Labour candidate for his home town, where the sitting Labour Member of Parliament (MP) George Benson was retiring from Parliament. He was narrowly selected in June 1963 and duly held the Chesterfield seat in the 1964 election.

Despite rebelling against the government's application to join the Common Market in 1967, Varley became an Assistant Whip later that year, and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister Harold Wilson in November 1968. He served briefly as a junior minister under Tony Benn at the Ministry of Technology from 1969. During the Labour Party's period of opposition in the early 1970s, Varley was Chairman of the Trade Union Group of MPs, and became spokesman on fuel and power.

Varley was appointed Secretary of State for Energy when Labour returned to power in 1974, and was the cabinet's youngest member. The appointment of an NUM-sponsored MP helped the government end the NUM strike which had led the previous government to ration electricity to three days a week. Varley subsidised the National Coal Board and chose a British design for new nuclear power stations over an American rival. He also began the procedure to nationalise North Sea oil.

During the Common Market referendum he advocated a 'No' vote but was not prominent in the campaign. Immediately afterwards Wilson swapped Varley's and Benn's posts, so that Varley was effectively promoted to Secretary of State for Industry. In November 1976 Varley suffered an embarrassing public defeat when he determined to shut down the loss-making Chrysler car factory: the Cabinet forced him to increase its subsidy to keep it open. He continued the government's slow nationalisation programme by appointing Michael Edwardes to take over at British Leyland.

When Labour went into opposition in 1979, Varley was elected to the Shadow Cabinet in fifth place. He led Denis Healey's campaign for the party leadership in 1980 and defeated the left-winger Norman Atkinson for the post of party Treasurer (an office he had coveted for some years) in 1981. He served as opposition spokesman on employment, and resisted an attempt by Michael Foot to replace him with Neil Kinnock (whom he disliked) in 1982.

After Kinnock's election as party leader in 1983, Varley announced that he would retire from Parliament at the next general election. However, he ended up leaving before then, as he was appointed as Chairman of Coalite plc, a private company manufacturing coal-based products including a coke-like smokeless fuel of the same name. He resigned his seat in January 1984. Ironically, this opened the way for Tony Benn to return to the House of Commons as Varley's successor in the seat. Varley served five years at Coalite, until the company was acquired in 1989, and subsequently held other directorships, including as a regional director for Lloyds Bank. Following a Labour Party nomination, he was created a life peer on 30 May 1990 taking the title Baron Varley, of Chesterfield in the County of Derbyshire.

Personal life

In 1955, Varley married Marjorie Turner, and they had one son.

Varley was a Methodist. He lived in Walton, Chesterfield, and was known for maintaining an elaborate garden at his home. He died from cancer at his residence on 29 July 2008, at the age of 75.

References

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Varley, Eric
1932 births
2008 deaths
20th-century Methodists
21st-century Methodists
Alumni of Ruskin College
British Secretaries of State
Deaths from cancer in England
English Methodists
Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Labour Party (UK) life peers
Life peers created by Elizabeth II
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for constituencies in Derbyshire
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Ministers in the Wilson governments, 1964–1970
National Union of Mineworkers-sponsored MPs
Parliamentary private secretaries to the prime minister
People from Chesterfield, Derbyshire
UK MPs 1964–1966
UK MPs 1966–1970
UK MPs 1970–1974
UK MPs 1974
UK MPs 1974–1979
UK MPs 1979–1983
UK MPs 1983–1987
British Eurosceptics