James Lamond

Background

Lamond was born in Burrelton, Perthshire. His father worked for the London and North Eastern Railway.

Education

He was educated at schools in Burrelton and Coupar Angus, before becoming an apprentice draughtsman at the Hall and Company shipyard in Aberdeen in 1942, aged 14.

Career

He could not afford the fees to study naval architecture in Newcastle, and worked as a draughtsman for the North-east Scotland Regional Hospital Board. He joined the Labour party in 1950, and was elected to Aberdeen City Council in 1959, serving as a councillor until 1971. He became leader of the local Labour group in 1967, and served as Lord Provost and Lord Lieutenant of Aberdeen in 1970-1971.

After he failed to be selected for the safe Labour seat of Aberdeen North, losing out to Robert Hughes, he found favour instead in Oldham East, where he was elected in June 1970.

He stood on the left wing of the Labour party, alongside Tony Benn, Eric Heffer and Arthur Latham. He opposed the plans for devolution in Scotland, voting against the Scotland Bill in 1977.

Also in 1977, he was upbraided by the Speaker after making some forthright remarks about Prince Philip. Lamond supported Tony Benn in his unsuccessful bid to become the Labour party"s deputy leader in 1980.

In the 1980s, he was criticised as an apologist of the Communist regime in the Soviet Union, particularly after he provided justifications for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

In a debate in the House of Commons in July 1980, the World Peace Council was criticised by Conservative Foreign Office minister Peter Blaker as a "disguised instrument of Soviet policy", a charge that Lamond rejected (although he later accepted that much of its funding did indeed come from the Soviet Union). After constituency boundaries were redrawn in 1983, he moved to the new seat of Oldham Central and Royton, selected ahead of Joel Barnett. He opposed the location of United States cruise missiles and Pershing missiles in the United Kingdom in December 1983.

He supported the declining textile industry in his constituency.

He served on the Public Accounts Committee from 1975 to 1983, and served on the Speaker"s panel from 1979 until he retired at the general election in 1992. He became a Deputy Lieutenant of Aberdeen in 1995.

He was chairman of the Royal Aberdeen Workshops for the Blind and Disabled from 2002 to 2004. He suffered from pneumonia in later life.

Achievements

• He was a vice-president of the World Peace Council, president of the British Peace Assembly, founder chairman of the British-East German Society.

Politics

Despite his controversial political views, he was respected as a parliamentarian.

Membership

45th United Kingdom Parliament. 46th United Kingdom Parliament. 47th United Kingdom Parliament.

48th United Kingdom Parliament.

49th United Kingdom Parliament. 50th United Kingdom Parliament]

He was an active member of the Draughtsmen"s and Allied Technicians" Association (Data.

Later successively renamed as AUEW-Tass, Union for Manufacturing, Science and Finance, Amicus and Unite). Unusually, he returned to local politics after leaving Parliament, serving as a member of Grampian Regional Council from 1994 to 1996.