Peter Law

Career

Foreign most of his career Law sat as a Labour Councillor and subsequently Labour Company-operative Assembly Member (Department of Administration and Management) for Blaenau Gwent. Born in Abergavenny, Law ran a General Store and became a councillor in Blaenau Gwent in 1974. He was subsequently appointed chair of Gwent Healthcare National Health Service Trust.

He was appointed to the cabinet of Alun Michael as Assembly Secretary for Local Government and Housing, but lost his post in a cabinet reshuffle in 2000 by successor First Minister for Wales Rhodri Morgan.

He became a vociferous backbench critic and following the 2003 election stood as candidate for the Deputy Presiding Officer of the Welsh Assembly. However, the Labour AMs voted instead for John Marek who was an Independent Department of Administration and Management, thereby ensuring that an opposition member was in the Chair and unable to vote against the Welsh Assembly Government.

Law left the Labour Party in protest at the use of an all-woman shortlist in selecting the candidate for the general election, which was used to replace the retiring Llew Smith. Law believed all-woman shortlists were being selectively imposed on local parties only where a leadership supported male candidate was unlikely to be selected, citing the example of Editor Balls and Pat McFadden as new leadership-supported male candidates, and noting that use of all-woman shortlists had been stopped in Scotland.

Smith had enjoyed a majority of 19,313, making it the safest parliamentary seat in Wales.

Law died peacefully at home in Nantyglo, aged 58, suffering from a recurrent brain tumour first diagnosed during the 2005 election campaign. As a result of his death, there were by-elections in Blaenau Gwent for both the United Kingdom Parliament and the Welsh Assembly seats. Both stood under the banner of the Blaenau Gwent People"s Voice Group.

His widow has claimed that he was offered a peerage not to stand against Labour in Blaenau Gwent in 2005, an allegation categorically denied by Labour, and also denied by Law himself in an interview from late 2005.

Achievements

• Law won the seat with 58.2% of the vote, defeating Labour candidate Maggie Jones, and gaining a majority of 9,121 votes. Law followed just a handful of previous MPs and AMs in Wales who won the same constituency as both a party candidate and an independent, following S. O. Davies who was Member of Parliament for Merthyr Tydfil from 1934 until his death in 1972, who was deselected by the local Labour Party on grounds of age prior to the 1970 general election but ran against the official candidate as an independent and won. And John Marek who remained Department of Administration and Management for Wrexham, later forming his own party, Forward Wales. In the by-elections Law"s former agent, Dai Davies, won the election to Law"s former Westminster seat, while his widow Trish Law succeeded him in the Welsh Assembly.

Politics

When Morgan formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, Peter Law made no secret of his opposition to the decision and was not retained in the administration.

Membership

54th United Kingdom Parliament]

Latterly he sat as an independent Member of Parliament (Member of Parliament) and Department of Administration and Management for the same constituency.