Allan Rogers, the former Labour MP for Rhondda who has died aged 91, had, through the circumstances of his childhood, a passionate understanding of the difficult lives of many of his constituents in the valleys of south Wales.
The youngest of 12 children of a disabled former miner who was unable to find work for over a decade after he was injured in a colliery accident, Rogers sought ways to improve the prospects for those he represented throughout his life – first as a councillor in local government, then as a member of the European parliament for five years and subsequently, from 1983 until 2001, in the House of Commons.
There, Rogers made an impact as a lively, enterprising and assertive MP. He was genial and popular on the Labour benches, but he was too much of a straight-talking class warrior for many in other parties. He pursued those responsible for financial mismanagement and fraud, and once complained bitterly to the public accounts committee (PAC): “Steal £20 from the DHSS and you land up in jail; steal £20m in the City and you land up in the Cayman Islands.”
He was a doughty fighter for his constituency but was opposed to devolution to Wales, arguing instead for more direct government investment – particularly in the valleys as the coal industry was closed. He condemned the Conservative government’s “Valleys Initiative” for regeneration in 1989 as amounting to little more than “a few brass lamps outside Rhondda’s pubs”.
As well as the PAC (1986-88), Rogers was a member of the European scrutiny committee (2000) and the Welsh affairs committee (1986-87). Neil Kinnock, as Labour leader, appointed him a junior defence spokesman in 1987 and in 1992, under the leadership of John Smith, he joined the foreign affairs team. That year, he stood unsuccessfully against Doug Hoyle for the chairmanship of the parliamentary Labour party. In 1994 Tony Blair dropped him from the frontbench and he was made a member of the influential intelligence and security committee. Three years prior, Rogers had notably blown the whistle on British companies exporting arms to Iraq, when he called for an inquiry into the issue, claiming it contravened the UN resolution on the subject. This would lead to the damning Scott report.
He was never in sympathy with Blair’s New Labour project, although he voted for Blair and John Prescott as leader and deputy. He announced in 1998, a year after Labour’s triumphant election win, that he would retire at the next general election, citing his disenchantment with government policy on education, health and welfare reform. “Working-class people feel that the government has forgotten them in its desire to become the friend of big business, the City and media moguls,” he told the Daily Mirror.
Born in Gelligaer in the Rhymney Valley, the son of Madeleine (nee Smith) and John Rogers – who had been injured in 1926 and did not work again until the second world war brought other employment to south Wales – Allan had become a member of the Labour party at 16.
He was a clever boy and won a scholarship from his secondary school in Bargoed to Selwyn College, Cambridge, but was unable to take it up because administrative errors had led to the loss of his application to defer his national service. Instead he spent two years with the Royal Welch Fusiliers and in 1953 studied for a degree in geology at University College, Swansea. He worked as a geologist in the UK, Canada, the United States and Australia from 1956 until 1963, when he took up teaching.
He recognised the crucial importance of education as a route to self-improvement and spent the next 15 years working as a schoolteacher and in adult education.
As a tutor with the Workers’ Educational Association for five years, he was a colleague of Kinnock, then in 1970 he became the WEA district secretary for mid and south Wales. He was elected to Gelligaer district council, where he served between 1965 and 1971, and in 1970 to Glamorgan (later Mid Glamorgan) county council.
Although an anti-marketeer – in common with many on the Labour left at the time – Rogers stood in the first round of direct elections to the European parliament in 1979 and became the MEP for South East Wales. He won a reputation as an effective member, securing substantial European funding for his constituency but sought unsuccessfully to establish a register of MEPs’ financial interests. He was a vice-president of the parliament, from 1979 until 1982, but membership did not change his views on European politics and he continued to advocate British withdrawal.
He was already looking to further his career at Westminster. He failed to secure selection as the Labour candidate for Caerphilly in 1982, but the following year was chosen for Rhondda to succeed the shadow Welsh secretary, Alec Jones, whose death that March would have precipitated a byelection had the general election not been called for early June.
A visiting professor at the University of South Wales from 1997, Rogers continued to work in education after leaving politics as chair of the Earth Science Education Forum from 2002 to 2010. He was a board member of the British Geological Survey from 2001 to 2005 and a fellow of the Geological Society, as well as a member of the Treorchy Workingmen’s Club and president of Penallta rugby football club. He loved all sport and had been a boxer in his youth. A jazz enthusiast and a keen gardener, he was at different times a dog breeder and owned a chip shop, managed by a family member.
In 1955, he married his sweetheart from schooldays, Ceridwen James. She died in 2022. He is survived by their children, Cerilan, Richard, Alison and Catherine.
• Allan Ralph Rogers, politician, born 24 October 1932; died 28 November 2023
