Eric Varley

Life and career

Varley was born in Poolsbrook near Staveley, Chesterfield, Derbyshire and left school at 15 to become a craftsman, first in the local iron works and then for the local mining industry. He 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 in March 1974 when Labour returned to power. 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 was appointed as Chairman of Coalite plc, a private company manufacturing coal-based products including a coke-like smokeless fuel of the same name, and 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, and later held other directorships. 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.

Eric Varley died in 2008 of cancer at his home.