Kenneth Woolmer, Baron Woolmer Of Leeds
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Kenneth John Woolmer, Baron Woolmer of Leeds (born 25 April 1940) is a British university lecturer and
politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...
. Coming into politics through local government in
West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...
, Woolmer was elected to Parliament for the Labour Party in 1979. He became an effective Parliamentarian and was rapidly promoted, despite clearly allying to the party's right-wing and playing an active role in the intra-party conflict. Partly due to adverse boundary changes, he lost his seat in 1983 and was unable to win it back. Later in life he received a
life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister. With the exception of the D ...
age and was an active member of the
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.


Early career

Woolmer was the son of Joseph Woolmer, and was educated at Kettering Grammar School, moving on to the
University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...
where he received a
Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...
degree in economics; after graduating he became a university lecturer at Leeds. His political career began in 1970 when he was elected as a Labour Party candidate to
Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...
city council, of which he was deputy leader from 1972. In 1973 Woolmer was elected to the new Leeds city council and to
West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...
county council which had been created as part of local government reorganisation. At the 1970 Labour Party conference, Woolmer (as the delegate from
Leeds North West Leeds North West is a constituency in the City of Leeds which has been represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Katie White, of the Labour Party. History The constituency was created in 1950, as Leeds North-We ...
Constituency Labour Party A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party who live in a particular parliamentary constituency. In England and Wales, CLP boundaries coincide with those for UK parliamentary constituencies. In Sc ...
) seconded a motion calling for abolition of all private medicine. That year he fought
Leeds North West Leeds North West is a constituency in the City of Leeds which has been represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Katie White, of the Labour Party. History The constituency was created in 1950, as Leeds North-We ...
at the general election, coming second.


West Yorkshire county council

As deputy leader and chairman of the planning and transport committee of West Yorkshire county council, Woolmer announced in July 1974 the beginning of a campaign for industrial and commercial development. In 1976 he called for Government support for electronics industries which were locating in West Yorkshire, after a Rank Radio factory made 200 workers redundant. Woolmer was chairman of the planning and transportation committee of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities from 1974 to 1977, and later became Leader of West Yorkshire county council.


1979 election

By the late summer of 1976, Woolmer had been selected to follow Dr
Alfred Broughton Sir Alfred Davies Devonsher Broughton (18 October 1902 – 2 April 1979) was a British Labour Party politician and doctor who was the MP for Batley and Morley from 1949 until his death. Background Alfred Davies Devonsher Broughton was bo ...
as Labour Party candidate for
Batley and Morley Batley and Morley was a parliamentary constituency centred on the towns of Batley and Morley in West Yorkshire. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The constituency was ...
.See
F. W. S. Craig Frederick Walter Scott Craig (10 December 1929 – 23 March 1989) was a Scottish psephologist and compiler of the standard reference books covering United Kingdom Parliamentary election results. He originally worked in public relations, compilin ...
& E. P. Craig, "The Political Companion", Parliamentary Research Services, No. 24 (Summer/Autumn 1976), p. 97.
Broughton suffered prolonged ill health during the later stages of the Parliament but did not resign his seat; he died just as the 1979 general election campaign began. Woolmer was elected with a majority of 5,352. In Parliament Woolmer specialised in issues affecting the economy and industry. He became a member of the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service when it was set up, and chaired the
Parliamentary Labour Party The Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) is the parliamentary group of the Labour Party in the British House of Commons. The group comprises the Labour members of parliament as a collective body. Commentators on the British Constitution sometimes ...
finance and economic committee in 1980–81.


Economic policy

In responding to the recession of the early 1980s, Woolmer pressed the Government to use the proceeds of
North Sea oil North Sea oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, comprising liquid petroleum and natural gas, produced from petroleum reservoirs beneath the North Sea. In the petroleum industry, the term "North Sea" often includes areas such as the Norwegian ...
to build up manufacturing industry, and he challenged
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
to accept that her policies were causing a divide between the industrial north and the prosperous south. He attacked the 1981 budget as "savagely deflationary", asserting that it would "pile agony on to injury". Woolmer also took up the cause of
civil servants The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...
' pay, urging the Government to take the matter to arbitration.


Solidarity

After a special conference of the Labour Party endorsed an electoral college for future elections of the party leader, Woolmer signed a statement deploring the outcome. He volunteered as Secretary of Solidarity, a group which campaigned against the far left within the Labour Party and to stop further defections to the
Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...
. Leader of the Opposition
Michael Foot Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British politician who was Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom), Leader of the Opposition from 1980 to 1983. Foot beg ...
promoted Woolmer to the front bench as junior spokesman on trade, prices and consumer protection from November 1981; it was noted that he was not a left-winger in Labour Party terms. Woolmer joined a pressure group called "Forward Labour" which was set up in 1982 calling for evidence of
Militant tendency The Militant tendency, or Militant, was a Trotskyist group in the British Labour Party, organised around the ''Militant'' newspaper, which launched in 1964. In 1975, there was widespread press coverage of a Labour Party report on the infiltrat ...
infiltration of the Labour Party to be published, with a view to expelling their members. In his front bench role, Woolmer pressed the Government not to allow
British Airways British Airways plc (BA) is the flag carrier of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main Airline hub, hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and pass ...
(then in state ownership) to sell off profitable subsidiaries, which he believed to be a prelude to its
privatisation Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...
.


Defeat

When Woolmer came up for re-election at the
1983 general election The following elections occurred in the year 1983. Africa * 1983 Cameroonian parliamentary election * 1983 Equatorial Guinean legislative election * 1983 Kenyan general election * 1983 Malagasy parliamentary election * 1983 Malawian general elec ...
, his constituency was divided in boundary changes and Woolmer stood for the new
Batley and Spen Batley and Spen was a constituency in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons of the UK Parliament. The most recent MP was Kim Leadbeater, a Labour Party (UK), Labour politician, who was elected in 2021 Batley and Spen by-el ...
seat which was less favourable for the Labour Party.It was estimated that, had the new seat voted at the 1979 election, Labour would have led the Conservatives by 3.1% of the vote. In the actual 1979 results, Woolmer had led the Conservative candidate by 11.4%. This made Batley and Spen the 23rd smallest majority in a Labour held seat. See "The BBC/ITN Guide to the New Parliamentary Constituencies", Parliamentary Research Services, 1983, p. 26, 154. After a close fight, Woolmer lost the seat by 870 votes to the Conservative
Elizabeth Peacock Elizabeth Joan Peacock (née Gates; born 4 September 1937) is a British Conservative politician and former Member of Parliament for the West Yorkshire constituency of Batley and Spen. Peacock served as a North Yorkshire County Councillor from ...
. His loss from the House of Commons was described as "unexpected" by
Gerald Kaufman Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman (21 June 1930 – 26 February 2017) was a British politician and author who served as a minister throughout the Labour government of 1974 to 1979. Elected as a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member of parliame ...
, who particularly regretted it because Woolmer "had developed an impressive expertise in trade policy". Woolmer had been the principal of Halton Gill Associates, consultants on central and local government, since 1979. In 1985 Woolmer was reselected to try to gain Batley and Spen back from the Conservatives. At the 1987 general election, he was again defeated as the Conservatives slightly increased their majority; it was speculated that a large personal vote for the sitting Conservative MP had kept the seat in her hands.


Subsequent business career

In 1991 Woolmer became Director of
MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...
Programmes for Leeds University; he also served as a director of
Leeds United F.C. Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The team compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league system. Leeds United have won the League Championship ...
from 1991 to 1996. He was briefly Dean of External Relations for the university in 1997 before becoming Dean of the School of Business and Economic Studies; he oversaw the creation of a separate Leeds University Business School before leaving in 2000. He has been a partner in Anderson McGraw since 2001 and was a non-executive director of Thornfield Developments Ltd from 1999 to 2002, among other business appointments. Woolmer was created a
Life Peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister. With the exception of the D ...
as Baron Woolmer of Leeds, ''of
Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...
in the County of West Yorkshire'' in the
Peerage of the United Kingdom The Peerage of the United Kingdom is one of the five peerages in the United Kingdom. It comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Acts of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great B ...
on 3 August 1999. He sat in the House of Lords until his retirement on 26 May 2020.


Arms


References


External links

*
Announcement of his introduction at the House of Lords
House of Lords minutes of proceedings, 19 October 1999 {{DEFAULTSORT:Woolmer, Kenneth 1940 births Living people Woolmer of Leeds Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1979–1983 Life peers created by Elizabeth II Peers retired under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 Alumni of the University of Leeds