John Spellar

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British politician (born 1947)

title: "John Spellar" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1947-births", "living-people", "alumni-of-st-edmund-hall,-oxford", "councillors-in-the-london-borough-of-bromley", "electrical,-electronic,-telecommunications-and-plumbing-union-sponsored-mps", "labour-party-(uk)-councillors", "labour-party-(uk)-life-peers", "labour-party-(uk)-mps-for-english-constituencies", "labour-friends-of-israel", "life-peers-created-by-charles-iii", "members-of-the-privy-council-of-the-united-kingdom", "northern-ireland-office-junior-ministers", "people-educated-at-dulwich-college", "people-from-bromley", "trade-unionists-from-kent", "uk-mps-1979–1983", "uk-mps-1992–1997", "uk-mps-1997–2001", "uk-mps-2001–2005", "uk-mps-2005–2010", "uk-mps-2010–2015", "uk-mps-2015–2017", "uk-mps-2017–2019", "uk-mps-2019–2024", "uk-mps-who-were-granted-peerages"] description: "British politician (born 1947)" topic_path: "engineering" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Spellar" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary British politician (born 1947) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox officeholder"]

Field	Value
honorific-prefix	The Right Honourable
name	The Lord Spellar
honorific-suffix
image	Official portrait of John Spellar crop 2.jpg
caption	Official portrait, 2017
office	Shadow Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
leader	Ed Miliband
Harriet Harman
term_start	8 October 2010
term_end	18 September 2015
predecessor	Chris Bryant
successor	Catherine West
office1	Comptroller of the Household
primeminister1	Gordon Brown
term_start1	5 October 2008
term_end1	11 May 2010
predecessor1	Tommy McAvoy
successor1	Alistair Carmichael
office2	Minister of State for Northern Ireland
term_start2	13 June 2003
term_end2	10 May 2005
primeminister2	Tony Blair
predecessor2	Des Browne
successor2	David Hanson
office3	Minister of State for Transport
primeminister3	Tony Blair
term_start3	8 June 2001
term_end3	13 June 2003
predecessor3	The Lord Macdonald of Tradeston
successor3	Kim Howells
office4	Minister of State for the Armed Forces
primeminister4	Tony Blair
term_start4	29 July 1999
term_end4	8 June 2001
predecessor4	Doug Henderson
successor4	Adam Ingram
office5	Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence
primeminister5	Tony Blair
term_start5	6 May 1997
term_end5	28 July 1999
predecessor5	The Earl Howe
successor5	Peter Kilfoyle
{{Collapsed infobox section begin	titlestyle
office6	Member of the House of Lords
status6	Lord Temporal
termlabel6	Life peerage
term_start6	12 August 2024
parliament7	United Kingdom
constituency_MP7	Warley
prior_term7	Warley West (1992–1997)
term_start7	9 April 1992
term_end7	30 May 2024
predecessor7	Peter Archer
successor7	Constituency abolished
parliament8	United Kingdom
constituency_MP8	Birmingham Northfield
term_start8	28 October 1982
term_end8	13 May 1983
predecessor8	Jocelyn Cadbury
successor8	Roger King
birth_name	John Francis Spellar
birth_date
birth_place	Bromley, Kent, England
party	Labour
spouse
children	1
alma_mater	St Edmund Hall, Oxford
module
::

John Francis Spellar, Baron Spellar, (born 5 August 1947), is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Warley, formerly Warley West, from 1992 to 2024. A member of the Labour Party, he previously represented Birmingham Northfield from 1982 to 1983. He served as a minister in various departments between 1997 and 2005, and as Comptroller of the Household in the Whips' Office between 2008 and 2010. After Labour entered opposition, he served as a shadow Foreign Office minister from 2010 to 2015.

Early life

Spellar was born in Bromley and educated at Dulwich College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He was Chairman of the Oxford University Labour Club in 1967.

Spellar was the Political Officer of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU) from 1969 to 1992, and was a speech-writer for general secretaries Frank Chapple and Eric Hammond.

He was a councillor in the London Borough of Bromley between 1970 and 1974.

Parliamentary career

Spellar stood for the constituency of Bromley at the 1970 general election as Labour's youngest candidate.

He was first elected to the House of Commons in the 1982 Birmingham Northfield by-election but lost at the 1983 general election to the Conservative candidate, Roger King. At the 1987 general election he stood again for the same seat but was again unsuccessful against King. Spellar returned to the House of Commons in the 1992 general election becoming the MP for Warley West with a majority of 5,472, and was appointed an opposition whip. Following a period as opposition spokesman for Northern Ireland in 1994, he was moved to shadow Defence minister in 1995.

At the 1997 general election, Spellar was elected as MP for the new Warley constituency, after Warley West had been abolished in a boundary review. In the new Labour government, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence, being promoted to become Minister of State for the Armed Forces in 1999. In 2001, he was appointed to the Privy Council, as Minister of State for Transport in the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions He left the front benches in 2005, but in 2008, he rejoined the government as a whip (Comptroller of the Household) and served until Labour entered opposition in May 2010.

In November 2015, Spellar suggested that Jeremy Corbyn should resign as Labour leader over the question of whether to conduct air strikes on ISIL in Syria. Spellar was in favour of military action, and he described Corbyn's admission that he could not personally support the air strikes as an "attempted coup" by "Corbyn and his tiny band of Trots in the bunker." Spellar supported Owen Smith in the 2016 Labour leadership election.

In November 2017, Spellar was appointed as a member of the UK parliament delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

In March 2019, Spellar was one of 21 MPs—and the only Labour MP—to vote against LGBTQ-inclusive sex and relationships education in English schools. He defended his vote by saying that "parents have the primary responsibility for bringing up their children and they may have different views.” The co-chair of LGBT Labour Melantha Chittenden tweeted in response to his vote, saying: "Woke up to find out that one Labour MP voted against LGBT inclusive relationship and sex education and I’ve been sat here trying to work out how to explain how furious I am, but I only have one thing to say: John Spellar shame on you."

On 27 May 2024, Spellar announced he would step down at the 2024 general election, after having served as an MP for over 32 years.

Peerage

After standing down as an MP, Spellar was nominated for a life peerage in the 2024 Dissolution Honours. He was created Baron Spellar, of Smethwick in the County of the West Midlands, on 12 August 2024.

Other political activities

Spellar is a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel. He is a Director of the Labour right wing grouping Labour First, and sits on the Advisory Council of the Henry Jackson Society, a prominent neoliberal and neoconservative foreign policy think tank. He is also a member of the Council on Geostrategy Advisory Board.

Personal life

Spellar was married to dentist Anne Wilmot from 1981 until her death in 2003. They had a daughter.

References

Clark, Phil. (2001). "John Spellar". building.co.uk.
Hayter, Dianne. (2004). "St Ermins group (act. 1981–1987)".
(1998). "Parliamentary Profiles: Four Volume Set". Parliamentary Profile Services Ltd.
Greenslade, Roy. (10 September 2003). "Remember Peter McBride?". The Guardian.
Jonathan Walker. (27 November 2015). "Black Country Labour MP suggests Jeremy Corbyn should resign over Syria". Birmingham Mail.
(20 July 2016). "Which MPs are nominating Owen Smith in the Labour leadership contest?". Mirror.
(14 November 2017). "Membership of the Delegation". UK Parliament.
(28 March 2019). "21 MPS who voted against teaching kids about gay families".
(2024-05-27). "Labour's Warley MP John Spellar stands down before election".
Smith, Adam. (2024-05-27). "'I've had a good run': Veteran Labour MP John Spellar to stand down this summer after 32 years".
{{London Gazette. (7 August 2024)
"Dissolution Peerages 2024".
Whannel, Kate. (4 July 2024). "Theresa May and 'bionic' MP awarded peerages". BBC News.
{{London Gazette. (16 August 2024)
(22 September 2016). "MPs flock to support Labour Israel group". The Jewish Chronicle.
Harpin, Lee. (7 August 2019). "Dame Louise Ellman becomes new Labour Friends of Israel chair". Jewish Chronicle.
"Labour First Ltd Company Data". Companies House, UK.
"Advisory Council". Henry Jackson Society.
(2021-04-07). "What will post-Covid Britain look like for the black community? {{!}} Seun Matiluko".
(2019-02-11). "Britain, Australia should forge post-Brexit free-movement pact: Boris Johnson".
Fisher, Lucy. "Britons want China to face inquiry over coronavirus outbreak". [[The Times]].
Ramesh, Randeep. (2014-12-30). "Rightwing thinktank pulls funds for Commons groups after disclosure row". The Guardian.
(2017-01-20). "Jewish deputy calls for pro-Israel 'infiltrators' to be banned from campuses".
"Advisory Board".
(22 October 2003). "Minister shocked by wife's death". BBC News.

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