Roger Stott, (7 August 1943 – 9 August 1999) was a British Labour Party politician.

Biography

Stott was born in

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...

, the first child of Richard and Edith Stott. He was of Scottish descent. He went to school in Rochdale and when he was 15 he joined the Merchant Navy. He then worked as an engineer for the Post Office and became local councillor for the Labour Party in Rochdale, where he was the Chair of the Housing Committee. He married Irene Mills on 17 June 1969 from which he had two sons Andrew (1970) and Joe (Stott) Mills (1972). The marriage ended in 1982 and he married again for a second time to a teacher Gillian Pye on 30 March 1985 and later had two children Daniel and Ciara. When Stott was not working, he loved to play sport, he was a great

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

fan and went to watch it whenever he had the chance. He was also a great fan of

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

Political career

Stott represented the North West Region on the National Committee of the Labour Party Young Socialists in 1969, following Peter Kent. He contested Cheadle in

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...

, coming third. Stott was first elected to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for

Westhoughton Westhoughton ( ) is a town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, southwest of Bolton, east of Wigan and northwest of Manchester.by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

in 1973, following the death of the sitting Labour MP Tom Price. He was sponsored by the

Post Office Engineering Union The Post Office Engineering Union (POEU) was a trade union in the United Kingdom. It represented engineering staff in the Post Office, mostly working in telecommunications. History The union was founded in 1915 when the Post Office Enginee ...

(POEU). He held that seat at three subsequent general elections before the constituency was abolished for the 1983 general election. He was then elected MP for the Wigan constituency in

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...

, and held that seat at the next three general elections. His death in office in 1999 made him the fourth Wigan MP in the twentieth century to die in office (the others being John Parkinson, Ronald Williams and William Foster). Stott was a longtime joint chairman of the

Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding The Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu), is a not-for-profit organisation that works for a British Middle East policy rooted in support for international law, human rights and civil society. Since it was founded in 1967, Caabu has taken ...

, and served as

Parliamentary Private Secretary A Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) is a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom who acts as an unpaid assistant to a minister or shadow minister. They are selected from backbench MPs as the 'eyes and ears' of the minister in the H ...

James Callaghan Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, ( ; 27 March 191226 March 2005), commonly known as Jim Callaghan, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Callaghan is ...

during his administration. He later served as a junior opposition spokesman.

Death

Stott died of

liver cancer Liver cancer (also known as hepatic cancer, primary hepatic cancer, or primary hepatic malignancy) is cancer that starts in the liver. Liver cancer can be primary (starts in liver) or secondary (meaning cancer which has spread from elsewhere to th ...

on Monday, 9 August 1999, two days after his 56th birthday. He had been ill for some time. After his death many people, including

Ian McCartney Sir Ian McCartney (born 25 April 1951) is a British Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Makerfield from 1987 and 2010. McCartney served in Tony Blair's Cabinet from 2003 until 2007, when Gordon Brown became Prime ...

and

Jack Cunningham John Anderson Cunningham, Baron Cunningham of Felling, PC, DL (born 4 August 1939) is a British politician who was a Labour Member of Parliament for over 30 years, serving for Whitehaven from 1970 to 1983 and then Copeland until the 2005 ...

, wrote tributes to him and the work he had done while he was MP.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stott, Roger 1943 births 1999 deaths British Merchant Navy personnel Councillors in Lancashire Labour Party (UK) councillors Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Commanders of the Order of the British Empire English people of Scottish descent Deaths from liver cancer Deaths from cancer in the United Kingdom People from Rochdale Parliamentary Private Secretaries to the Prime Minister Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Wigan Post Office Engineering Union-sponsored MPs UK MPs 1970–1974 UK MPs 1974 UK MPs 1974–1979 UK MPs 1979–1983 UK MPs 1983–1987 UK MPs 1987–1992 UK MPs 1992–1997 UK MPs 1997–2001