Ernest Bevin

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Bevin was a really significant figure and one of the most underestimated by history in terms of what he achieved for this country. He once said:

“I’m going to be at the Ministry of Labour from 1940 until 1990”,

and he would be proved right. It was not until Margaret Thatcher that certain of these rights would be removed, and as a union leader he was ambitious for change and saw the opportunity to be an MP and would prove a staunch ally to Clem Attlee.

Bevin’s abilities caught the eye, too, of Winston Churchill. In 1940, under the coalition Government and despite their previous battles, Churchill insisted on appointing Bevin to Minister of Labour, saying:

“He is the Labour man I want.”

Bevin led the full-scale mobilisation and demobilisation of industry and the country while simultaneously advancing wages, conditions and the equality of the working class. He understood that compulsory work orders should only be used in exceptional circumstances, and his experience in the unions had taught him that workers with high morale would be more willing to contribute to the war effort.

In the early years of Bevin’s tenure, there was a serious debate regarding his voluntaryism, but by 1944 a third of the civilian population was engaged in war work, including over 7 million women, who played a crucial role in the war production.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Just nine days before Mr Churchill invited Ernie Bevin to become the Minister for Labour in his Government, Mr Bevin was stood in Hanley town hall in my constituency giving a public rally address on the importance of the working class towards the war effort, and it is believed that the coverage of that speech in The Times two days later is what caught Churchill’s eye and encouraged Mr Churchill to invite him into his Government, which is a testimony to the power of oratory that sometimes we miss in today’s debates—although obviously not this one—and also that, wherever we look, there is a Stoke-on-Trent connection to most parts of our social history.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

That was a high-quality intervention.