Speaker’s Statement

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

I first met Jack during the Longbridge dispute, when we, as Members of Parliament, were getting together to do our best to save that huge industry in Birmingham. Unfortunately we all know what the result of that was, but Jack always tried his best. I met him next when we had an issue with the HP Sauce company, which was pulling out of Birmingham and going to Denmark. I joined him when he said, “I am going to lead this campaign on behalf of the trade unions.” We had a couple of conversations and meetings and decided to organise a rally. We all walked through Aston for about a mile and a half to the factory, and spoke to the workers there. Eventually, as a result of Jack’s tenacity, we managed to secure better terms and conditions for the people who had been expecting to lose their jobs.

That is what Jack was about. He was a great man, and from that day onwards I realised that he was someone whom I wanted to know better and become closer to. So when my friend and his predecessor as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Erdington, Siôn Simon, decided that he was going to move on, one of the first things I did was speak to Jack. On Friday evenings Jack was usually with his family, but one Friday evening Siôn and I met at a curry house where he and I and a couple of other friends tended to go to transact business, and I said, “Siôn, if you are leaving, perhaps we should speak to Jack Dromey, because he is a great guy, and we want someone like him who understands a community like Erdington which contains industries and a huge number of working people.”

When I called Jack he was in Ireland, listening to a recital being given by his daughter Amy. He texted me saying, “Can we speak tomorrow? I am at this recital, and I can’t talk to you now.” He contacted me the next day. The local Labour party then went through the necessary procedure, and selected him because it believed that he was the right person.

Jack was always at the forefront. Recently when a young lad, Dea-John Reid, was stabbed to death, Jack and I, along with our hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), turned up and spoke to representatives of the black churches and the community. I hope that our action has prevented any further uprisings.

Jack was always there. He was always there for the community, and he was always there for me. When I became frustrated by local authority issues, the following day he would either call me or come and see me in Portcullis House and try to explain how I could make progress.

Let me end by sending my condolences to the Mother of the House, to Joe and to Amy, and by changing an adage around: behind every strong woman there is a strong man. May Jack rest in peace.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I want to pay a very short tribute,

because we have heard so much from both sides of the House that encompasses so accurately Jack’s many qualities. When he came to the House, he was fully formed as a political activist and one of the greatest trade unionists of his generation. He had the abilities to ensure that social justice was advanced. He never gave up, and he was optimistic. He loved and was proud of his wife—he was a feminist before many of us knew what that word meant—and was unashamed to be Mr Harriet Harman. He was a very rare, very talented, very kind and gentle man who was the best of the Labour and trade union movement. We will all miss him terribly.

Condolences, obviously, to the Mother of the House and to his fantastic children, who are in the Gallery. As someone who was fortunate to benefit from Labour party romance, I always looked up to Harriet and Jack’s law centre romance as something that I should follow.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Jack Dromey has been in my life for a very long time. I was a candidate in Taunton—an eminently winnable seat for Labour—and because I was from the Transport and General Workers Union as well as a Co-operative, this young man suddenly pitched up for a day to help me, so we have known each other since 1974. He was really suspicious of me at first—there I was, a university academic standing as the Labour candidate—but he found out that I had served an apprenticeship at the ICI paint factory in Slough and we became great friends. Ever since that day, we worked together—we started the all-party parliamentary manufacturing group—and did wonderful campaigns together. He was not just a colleague or a comrade; he was a mate.

When you are serious about politics, you come here on a Thursday morning, to make the Leader of the House’s life a misery, and Jack was a member of that club. I still see him there. Jack was so warm and generous, and he had a way of worming things out of you. He had a big family, and I have four children and 12 grandchildren. We used to compete, and I know more about his family than you could ever believe because he would tell me. He would ask of my family, “How are you getting on? What stage are you at?” but I bored him because everything he had to say was more exciting than what we were doing.

The fact about Jack was his passion. As Chair of the Education and Skills Committee and then the Children, Schools and Families Committee, I have always been passionate about children’s issues, and he was passionate about families and children. He once said to me, “Barry, if you are a Member of Parliament and you care about the job, you cannot bear to think of a child in your constituency going to bed tonight with nothing in their tummy.” He was compassionate, he was funny and he was wise. I was with him and John Smith one night when we raised a glass of champagne and said, “Nothing but the best is good enough for the workers.” Jack, we love you, miss you and will work to be even better than we are because of you.