Eric Varley was a distinguished Labour politician who rose to prominence during the 1960s, serving in the Cabinets of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. He had the unenviable post of Industry Secretary at a time when British manufacturing was in steep decline. Proud of his Derbyshire mining origins, he served for 20 years as MP for the seat of Chesterfield where he was born and bred.

Eric Graham Varley was born in the pit village of Poolsbrook in 1932, the son of a Derbyshire miner. Initially steered away from the pit by his parents, Frank and Eva, he took an engineering apprenticeship as a turner, in the Staveley Iron Works. But his heart was in the mines, and when his apprenticeship neared completion in 1955, he sought employment there as a craftsman at the local workshops. He became deeply involved in the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), quickly becoming branch secretary. He also joined the Labour Party, and soon became vice-chairman of the Chesterfield party.

The Derbyshire area of the NUM pioneered adult education, and was the first trade union to offer financed day release for trade unionists. This enabled Varley to study economics, industrial relations and political theory at the extramural department of Sheffield University, and he then won a scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford, which provides educational opportunities to adults with few or no qualifications.

He was inspired during his years in the NUM by Bert Wynn, the general secretary of the Derbyshire miners, who, at a time when the coal industry was in serious decline and increased political activity was becoming inevitable, saw Varley as the ideal man to hold the mining seat of Chesterfield.

Sponsored by the NUM, he was duly selected, and won the seat, aged 29, in 1964. Throughout his parliamentary career, he remained acutely conscious of his debt to Wynn and the Derbyshire miners.

Once in the House he swiftly rose to prominence, and spent only three years on the back benches. Although he was warned that his opposition to Britain’s membership of the Common Market might prevent him obtaining a government position, he was appointed a whip in 1967. There he formed what was to become a firm friendship with Gerald Kaufman, also a whip, and each was to exercise a significance influence on the other during their parliamentary careers.

In 1968 Varley was appointed parliamentary private secretary to Harold Wilson, then Prime Minister, and within a year he was Minister of State under Tony Benn at the Ministry of Technology. In Opposition, in 1970, he was appointed a spokesman on regional policy, and in 1972 he became the chief opposition spokesman on fuel and power. From 1972 to 1974 he was chairman of the Trade Union Group of Labour MPs.

Modest and without the ruthless ambition which frequently characterises successful politicians, Varley appeared surprised when Wilson rewarded his loyalty by appointing him Secretary of State for Energy when Labour returned to power in 1974. Varley, at 41, was the youngest member of the Cabinet. His tenure in this office was particularly notable for the setting up of the British National Oil Corporation in response to the discovery of North Sea oil, and the Miners’ Compensation Fund, for miners who suffered from pneumoconiosis. His own father, of whom he was a devoted admirer, became one of the 34,000 beneficiaries of the fund.

But a year later, in 1975, he was appointed Secretary of State for Industry, with Gerald Kaufman as his under-secretary. Benn had held the post, but Wilson feared that his over-regulatory approach was less helpful than allowing market forces to determine industry’s future, and moved him to Energy Secretary in a straight swap with Varley.

Varley was now responsible for the first measures of nationalisation in ten years, bringing both shipbuilding and aerospace into public ownership. A hard-working and conscientious minister, he acquired a reputation among his officials for being an excellent administrator and a good departmental minister, never attending meetings without having first mastered his brief. He delegated a significant part of his work, which enabled him to have contact with, and understand more about, the workings of the other departments. It was during these years that his genuine understanding of trade unions became increasingly evident.

But British industry in the mid-1970s was in turmoil, and Varley found himself torn between a natural sympathy for his fellow trade unionists and the need to impose restraint in bailing out lame-duck companies. Union militancy over pay was rampant, strikes were commonplace and inflation was soaring. British businesses, struggling to compete against foreign competitors, queued up for government money and were mostly given the cold shoulder by Varley. Job cuts, more strikes and the sale of companies often followed.

One of his biggest headaches was the Chrysler motor company, which announced in October 1975 that it was to shut down its entire British operation with the loss of 25,000 jobs at Coventry and Linwood in Scotland. Varley, who viewed Chrysler’s action as a kind of blackmail, objected to a £200 million bailout proposed by Wilson together with Harold Lever, a Cabinet colleague. But he was overruled and obliged to preside over the rescue scheme, suffering criticism from both sides of the House.