Obituary: Jim Tinn

AMONG THE 1964 intake of Labour MPs were a number who had shown remarkable persistence and resilience in getting to the House of Commons. Often there was a story of epic struggle from an impeccable working-class background, through university relatively late in life, to a seat in Parliament. This experience made them all the more solid-minded when they arrived at Westminster, forged on the anvil of life. Such a one was Jim Tinn.

He was born in Leadgate, Co Durham, in 1922, the son of a steel-works engine driver at Consett. Leaving school at 15, he followed his father into the steel works and joined the Royal Air Force in his late teens. Throughout his parliamentary career he took a special interest in the welfare of servicemen. He spent most of the Second World War as a fitter in Britain and as ground crew owing to a physical problem which prevented him from flying.

Coming out of the RAF, he returned to work in the coke ovens of the then flourishing steel works at Consett from 1946 to 1953. From an early stage he was involved in affairs of the National Union of Blastfurnacemen, to whom he remained grateful throughout his life for both his education and his political career. It was they and in particular Ted Hill, the General Secretary of the Boilermakers Union who famously suggested to a Labour Party conference in the 1950s that "50,000 boilermakers say so and 50,000 boilermakers cannot be wrong".

It was the Boilermakers Union who sent him to Ruskin College, Oxford. There he did a Diploma in Politics, Science and Economics and went on to Jesus College, Oxford, to tackle PPE, graduating at the age of 36. He said that his first year at Ruskin was "a wonderful experience", but after five years he was "itching to get back into the more normal world" and took up a teaching post in a secondary modern school in Southbank, Middlesbrough, where he worked from 1958 to 1964. He taught social studies - "whatever I put into it" - and found the experience satisfying. He also, in the evenings, found the time and energy to lecture part-time in the Technical College in Stockton and Middlesbrough.

From 1952 to 1959 the Cleveland constituency had been represented by Arthur Palmer. In 1959 Palmer was defeated by 1,655 votes by the Conservative candidate Wilfred Proudfoot, who turned out to be an exceedingly energetic MP.

Tinn as a teacher had been active in rank-and-file constituency politics. After Proudfoot's incumbency of Cleveland, it was all the more to Tinn's credit that in 1964, somewhat unexpectedly, he won the seat by 28,596 votes to 24,124 votes, with the Liberals gaining 11,387. In his maiden speech on 20 November 1964 he chose to speak on the Remuneration of Teachers Bill, Second Reading.

"I have been somewhat exercised in my mind, wondering how I might be able to observe with a custom that I have noticed of injecting into one's remarks references to one's constituency, " he said with the delightful smile which often blew across his very square face,

I am troubled by the question of relevancy. In a debate on education, how can I talk about the rolling moorlands, the coastal and scenery and the attractions of Cleveland - the opportunities for industry which the area offers, and one or two of its problems? I am almost baffled by the problem of how to introduce it; but having managed to do so I move hurriedly on to the subject of the debate.

Tinn was always one for coming straight to the point.

I am certain of the profession as a whole and all concerned in the education system will be glad that the new Labour Government's Bill contains provision for retrospective payments, because as one who has been a conscientious member of a local committee of the National Union of Teachers I know that no single issue in salary negotiations

arouses stronger feeling than this. The knowledge that any payment agreed upon will be retrospective will help to keep down the temperature of negotiations and will make teachers more ready to bear with the negotiations.

Tinn lost no time as a new MP in pressing the President of the Board of Trade, then Douglas Jay, for new firms in his North East Teesside constituency. He was one of those who backed Nicholas Kaldor's suggestion for a Regional Employment Tax to augment the benefit that had been brought about by SET, the Selective Employment Tax.

Tinn spent much of his time supporting the Government's policy of the nationalisation of steel. He firmly believed from spending seven years in the sweat of tending the coke ovens that a nationalised industry would provide better investment and better conditions for steel workers than the private companies.

Along with Jeremy Bray, who was the MP for ICI at Billingham, and Arthur Bottomley, MP for the other Middlesbrough seat, he showed special interest in "Teesplan", a scheme to develop Teesside. It was partly on account of this joint work and his known congeniality that Bottomley made Tinn his Parliamentary Private Secretary at a time when the portfolio covered the most delicate of all world affairs in which Britain was involved, the transition of Southern Rhodesia and the formidable problems posed by their Prime Minister Ian Smith.

When Bottomley lost his ministerial post Tinn returned to the back benches but was soon to become involved in the strong support of the United States in relation to the Vietnam War. Many of his colleagues were angry with him about this, thinking that his attitude was determined by ambition to be a minister. Personally, I think this was unjust.

It was understandable that he should join the right-wing Manifesto Group. He voted unlike most MPs against the second and the third reading of the Abortion Bill of 1967 promoted by David Steel. Among his parliamentary interests was a national lottery and indeed he put forward a National Lotteries Bill several times in the early 1970s.

Tinn was dismayed at what he thought was the Labour movement's hell-bent urge on self- destruction. He was also very firm about MPs' salaries and he was one of only five Labour Members of Parliament - it took some guts - who voted with rebel Conservative MPs to secure a 5.5 per cent pay increase in 1983. I remember talking to him about this and his response that he had impeccable working-class credentials and that the National Union of Blastfurnacemen passionately believed in the rate for the job.

Along with his friend David Watkins, MP for Consett and Secretary of the Labour Group promoting Anglo-Arab understanding, Tinn was one of the first in the Labour Party to champion the somewhat unpopular cause of the Arabs. He foresaw a situation in which the Palestinians would demand and get their own state.

James Tinn, cokeworker, teacher and politician: born Leadgate, Co Durham 23 August 1922; MP (Labour) for Cleveland 1964-74, for Redcar 1974-87; PPS to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations 1965-66; Government Whip 1976-79, Opposition Whip 1979-82; died Durham 18 November 1999.