Ernest Bevin

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mark Ferguson.)

Ernest Bevin was a Bristol barrow boy who became our Foreign Secretary. In between, he became not just a trade union leader, but the head of the largest union in the country. He then went on to play a vital role in the wartime cabinet as Minister of Labour. A titan of the labour movement, some suggest that he was Labour’s Churchill.

In this debate, to mark the 75th anniversary of his death a fortnight ago, I will examine his achievements and their relevance today. Bevin’s accomplishments are made only more impressive by his humble beginnings. Born into great poverty in a remote Somerset village, he was orphaned at eight and began working as a labourer at 11, then as a delivery lad on the streets of Bristol. In his 20s, he attended lectures at the Bristol adult school and the Workers Educational Association, beginning his lifelong commitment to education. Soon after, he would become the national organiser for the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers’ union.

That informal education, and his life experience, made Bevin a formidable political operator. In 1922, alongside 13 other unions, Bevin led the formation of the Transport and General Workers’ Union. The amalgamation conference was held in Leamington Spa.

On the eve of International Workers’ Memorial Day, this debate is highly appropriate. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as trade unionists and parliamentarians, we should commemorate that day tomorrow?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we should commemorate that day.

At the time of that amalgamation, the membership stood at 300,000 workers, but in just 15 years, Bevin would lead it to becoming the largest union in the country, with over 650,000 members. During that time as trade union leader, Bevin accelerated the rights, conditions and pay of the working class. His achievements included the introduction of a 40-hour working week, expanding holiday pay to 11 million workers and redefining the relationship between unions, Government and industry. Bevin truly was a visionary and a moderniser of industrial relations and left his mark on the UK’s political economy long after his tenure.

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. My Strangford constituency has a very proud military and industrial heritage. I believe Bevin’s role in founding NATO and his unwavering support for a strategic nuclear deterrent are just as vital to his legacy. Does the hon. Member agree that Bevin’s common sense, patriotic approach is something that all of us, on both sides of this House, stand to learn from today, especially when it comes to supporting our veterans and of course our national defence?

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.

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.

That was a high-quality intervention.

I will try and raise my standards to the level of oratory that my hon. Friend would now expect.

The role of women in the war effort proved decisive, and the mobilisation proved decisive to the overall war effort and gave Britain an advantage over Nazi Germany. As striking was the effect of demobilisation on a peacetime economy. It was all this work that led Bevin’s Labour Ministry to be likened to Roosevelt’s new deal, a theme to which I will return.

Following Labour’s victory in the 1945 election, Bevin was appointed Foreign Secretary, a move that surprised many. Attlee’s justification was simple: he thought that affairs were going to be pretty difficult and that “a heavy tank” was going to be required “rather than a sniper.”

Bevin did not disappoint. His achievements were truly considerable. Bevin understood the threat of Stalin and his strategy sooner than any other leader, and Bevin’s intervention to secure Marshall aid in Europe, the recognition that western Europe needed political and economic unity, and his refusal to bow to Stalin’s demands must rate at the very top of all diplomatic successes.

Bevin and Attlee’s decision to allow US B-29 bombers to be stationed in the UK sent a clear message to Stalin that the UK and US were resolute in the defence of West Berlin and Europe. Although Bevin understood the importance of US support, he recognised the need to be independent and insisted on the UK securing its own atomic bomb with a

“Union Jack flying on top of it.”

However, perhaps his greatest achievement was the formation of NATO. It was largely his own initiative, as he drove forward the eventual signing of the treaty in 1949 through sheer determination.

I should take this moment to acknowledge that Bevin was a man, as well as a phenomenon, who had his faults and misjudgements: his staunch imperialism, manifesting itself in the rejection of Indian independence, his handling of Israel-Palestine or the Malayan uprising, and his antisemitic views were all wrong. I do not excuse him, but there is much to recognise in his vision of the wider world and its relevance to today. As he saw in the 1930s and in 1945, we now see order crumbling around us and certainties of the past no longer hold true.

I call the Minister to continue to elevate the quality of the debate.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) for securing the debate and for his excellent speech, and I thank other hon. Members for their contributions. I am happy to have the opportunity to respond. I pass on apologies from the Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), who, as I am sure hon. Members will recognise, would dearly have loved to have responded to the debate, but is unable to be here because of a family matter, so I am standing in.

Ernest Bevin was a man of immense stature—a giant of the Labour movement and the embodiment of social mobility. He was born into poverty as the seventh child of a single mother and orphaned at the age of eight, yet he rose to be one of my party’s towering figures, one of his country’s most consequential Foreign Secretaries and one of the founders of NATO. He is aptly described by Lord Adonis in his recent biography as

“an international leader of unique charisma and authenticity.”

His life story is a testimony to both public service and to his immense perseverance, skill and energy.

Bevin never forgot his origins, keeping a photograph of his mother on his desk throughout his career. Leaving school at 11, he worked as a farm boy before moving to Bristol to take on a series of unskilled jobs, attending adult education classes and finding his voice as a Baptist lay preacher.

On that point, will the Minister give way?

I certainly will. Does my hon. Friend want to intervene because I mentioned Bristol?

Yes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on securing the debate. We do not talk about Ernest Bevin enough, even in Bristol. There is a bust of him in the Unite building, which was the Transport and General Workers’ Union building, and there is a plaque on St Werburghs, but we could do a lot more to celebrate his achievements in Bristol. In his biography, it is said that by the age 13 he was driving a van around the streets of Bristol, which is a slightly alarming prospect, but his back story is absolutely amazing and, given his background, it goes to show what an amazing man he was to rise to be Foreign Secretary.

I completely agree. I would like to see Bevin celebrated more in Bristol and across the country, particularly for his contribution to NATO and to the trade union movement.

Bevin’s journey into public service was firmly rooted in the union movement, which he saw as his true calling, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington said. Bevin passionately presented the dockers’ case for a pay rise in 1920, earning him the nickname the “Dockers’ KC”. He also played a major part in the founding of the Transport and General Workers’ Union—before today, I did not know that Leamington had a significant role in that, as my hon. Friend mentioned. Under Bevin’s pragmatic leadership, the TGWU brought together 14 unions to become Britain’s biggest trade union, boasting more than 650,000 members. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) said, it is quite right that we remember that today—the day before International Workers’ Memorial Day.

When our nation faced its darkest hour in May 1940, Bevin became Minister of Labour and National Service in the wartime coalition, heralded by Churchill and across the House, as we heard. It was in using his incredible organisational talents that Bevin helped Britain to achieve a significantly higher level of civilian mobilisation than any other country managed in the conflict. Following Labour’s landslide victory in 1945, Attlee appointed Bevin as Foreign Secretary, a role in which he left his mark on the world. As we have heard, he was central to the European recovery, working to unlock billions in Marshall aid and securing western security through closer co-operation with the Council of Europe, NATO and the Commonwealth.

Bevin was a figure of huge achievement but no little controversy. To put it politely, he was sometimes blunt in his speech. He was unable to find a peaceful solution in Palestine, and he was clear about his views on empire. Not every decision he made was the right one or one that I would agree with, but we remember him rightly as a relentless fighter, a fierce patriot and a champion for the working-class Britain that traditional political elites too often ignored.