Sponsored by
Battle's war is finally over
Long-serving Leeds MP John Battle will not stand at the next General Election. Here we look at the popular Leeds West MP's 20 year career
By Peter Lazenby
JOHN Battle is well-named. He has been a fighter for the people of Leeds for almost 30 years, first as a Labour Councillor, and then as Labour MP for the Leeds West constituency, an inner-city area with its share of the problems suffered by most inner-cities over the last three decades.
He was elected to Leeds City Council in 1980, the year in which Labour took control of the council, and a year after the country elected the Thatcher Government. He represented Hunslet in south Leeds.
One of Mr Battle's areas of specialisation was housing, and in 1983 he became chairman of the Council's housing committee – not an enviable post to occupy when the Conservative Government activated its decision to force councils to sell-off their housing stock, an attempt to move housing out of the public and social sector.
He resisted. Today Leeds's remaining council housing stock is managed by a number of "ALMOs" – arm's length management organisations, controlled by the council.
During his time as a councillor Mr Battle, who is a Roman Catholic, founded Church Action on Poverty, a Christian-based charity at the sharp end of campaigning for the worst-off in society. In 1984 he became its national organiser.
Mr Battle stood for Parliament in the Leeds North West constituency in 1983 – the "Falklands election." He lost.
He succeeded at his next attempt in 1987, this time standing in Leeds West, covering the communities of Armley, Bramley, Wortley, Farnley, Kirkstall and Burley.
A skilled organiser and passionate speaker on the issues he cared about, he was a natural choice for appointments which followed. He became chairman of the Labour Party's health and social services committee in the year of his election.
In 1990 he became chairman of the Commons group of Labour MPs specialising in social security issues. He was re-elected in 1992, and in the 1995 was made Opposition Spokesman for Energy.
Ministerial office followed after Labour's landslide general election victory of 1997. First he was made Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry, with responsibility for energy, science and industry. It led to a passion for science which he still enjoys.
One of his most difficult briefs was to deal with the mineworkers' compensation scheme. One of the 1997 Labour Government's first decisions was to end a battle which had raged between workers in the mining industry and previous Conservative Governments for two decades – claims for compensation for crippling lung diseases which hundreds of thousands of miners suffered as a result of their jobs.
Responsibility
For 18 years the Conservatives had resisted responsibility for compensation in the courts and in Parliament. A public furore broke out at one stage when Conservative Government advisers were revealed to have calculated how much potential compensation money was being saved through the deaths of ex-miners from lung diseases as each year went by.
Labour conceded the miners' claim soon after election in 1997, but there were still enormous hurdles – finding the money, a matter of 5billion, being one of them.
Mr Battle found the funding quietly and without fanfare, through a tax on mobile telephone companies. It became known as the tax on the airwaves.
In 1999 he was appointed Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, working with Secretary of State Robin Cook.
In 2001 he was appointed as the Prime Minister's "special envoy" to all faith groups in Britain.
Mr Battle has always had many irons in the fire. He was responsible for publishing the poetic works of two of the early socialist pioneers in Leeds, Tom Maguire and Isabella Ford.
Poetry is another passion. There's seldom a time when he isn't carrying a book of poetry in his jacket pocket.
Mr Battle is also a family man. His wife Mary is from Belfast in the north of Ireland, and the couple visit family there regularly. They have a son and two daughters, all in their 20s.
Mr Battle lives in the heart of his constituency in Armley. His constituents are as likely to knock on his door or ring him at home with a problem than attend one of his surgeries.
Olympic
Mr Battle is Yorkshire through and through. He was born in St Luke's hospital in Bradford. It was not a straightforward birth. His mother, who had been training to be an Olympic swimmer, contracted polio along with five other members of the swimming team. She had to give birth in an "iron lung" – a huge piece of equipment which in the 1950s was used to keep people's lungs working through pressure.
His family home was in Batley Carr in Dewsbury.
Mr Battle studied for for 10 years, from the age of 11, to be a priest, attending a seminary in Liverpool. At 21 he decided the priesthood was not for him.
He came to Leeds, working as a psychiatric nursing assistant at Meanwood Hospital. After two years he went to Leeds University winning a first class honours degree in English and Philosophy. He began a research degree but never completed it.
He took a job as assistant to Leeds's first Labour Euro-MP Derek Enright. The job lasted until 1983, when he launched his anti-poverty charity, and then came Parliament.
When he wants a break from the pressure of Parliamentary and other work he seals himself into a room at his home with his books of poetry and the musical instrument he plays, a cittern – also known as a long-necked mandolin – a reminder of the days when he played in a folk band, Black Velvet.
John Battle is 55. He will be 58 or 59 when the next general election is likely to take place, and is looking for pastures new. He isn't revealing what, or where, they are but whatever they are, he will be passionate about them.
peter.lazenby@ypn.co.uk
Comment: Page 10
Email to a friend
Print this page- Politics: Mark Hookham's Westminster blog - 5.33pm
- Castleford RSPB Fairburn Ings: High wire act Swallows’ summer parade
- Worker dies on North Yorkshire Moors Railway
- Video: Restaurant reopens on Leeds Harry Ramsden’s site after £500,000 refit
- Chocolat author will tempt guests at Leeds Big Bookend Festival
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Leeds
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 8 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: East
