The former Labour and Co-operative MP Doug Naysmith, who has died aged 82, maintained a discreet profile at Westminster and may have been little known outside his constituency city of Bristol, yet he played a crucial role in one of the most far-reaching items of legislation enacted this century.
As a scientist with a doctorate in immunology, he was an influential member of the health select committee that persuaded the Blair government not to compromise, but to allow a free vote on the introduction of the proposed public ban on smoking. Naysmith, MP for Bristol North West from 1997 to 2010, regarded the subsequent passage of the legislation to introduce a total ban, which came into effect in 2007, as the highlight of his career.
He had entered parliament at the age of 56 on the tidal sweep of Tony Blair’s election, after pursuing a successful academic life for 25 years at the University of Bristol. He had been born into the Labour and Co-operative movement, however, and had combined his working life as an activist in local government. A genial, full-bearded Scot, Naysmith was popular even with his political opponents. He was a decent, kind man with a passionate interest in equality and a determination to try to help improve the lives of others.
Born in Musselburgh, East Lothian, he was the son of James and his wife, Ina (nee Vass). Both his parents worked for the local Co-operative Society, his father as a charge hand and his mother in the hardware department. His father was a Labour councillor and paid his teenage son’s early membership subscriptions to the party.
Doug went to Musselburgh Burgh primary school and then George Heriot’s school, Edinburgh, before studying for a BSc in zoology at the University of Edinburgh. He followed this with his PhD and then spent a year doing further research at Yale in the US.
Returning to Scotland in 1970, he worked for two years as an immunologist for the medical giant Beechams UK, but left when they closed down their TB research programme and made what was intended to be a temporary move to Bristol, taking a research post in the University of Bristol’s medical school. He was made a fellow of the university in 1976, became a lecturer in pathology in 1981 and moved to the registrar’s office for the last two years before his election to Westminster.
He never returned to Scotland, but always maintained a close interest in his native country and its politics. Like many Scots he did not buy into Blair’s idea of “New” Labour. He was, he would say, “just Labour” and, as an academic, he believed in the rigour of evidence-based politics. His philosophical mentors were Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper and Charles Darwin.
He stood unsuccessfully for election for the Bristol seat in the first directly elected European parliament in 1979, but two years later was elected to Bristol city council, where he was a member until 1998. During this time he chaired the Port of Bristol Authority (1986-91) and provoked some controversy by overseeing its sale into private ownership, a course he pursued to keep the port open and preserve local employment.
At Westminster his main concerns were focused on health issues, but he also pursued his interests in cooperative development, in science, and in ports and shipping. He made his maiden speech in defence of the introduction of the national minimum wage. He was a member of the select committee on regulatory reform, as well as the health select committee and he also chaired the parliamentary and scientific committee.
As joint chair of Labour’s health committee he was involved in a parliamentary campaign to try to tackle obesity. He was a member of the Socialist Health Association for more than 40 years and president twice, a fellow of both the Royal College of Medicine and the Society of Biology, and president of the Dementia Care Trust.
In the 1987 general election he had fought the safe Conservative seat of Cirencester and Tewkesbury and in 1992 was Labour’s candidate for the electoral bellwether constituency of Bristol North West, losing to the victorious Conservative by 45 votes.
It was the first of two close-run elections in his life: after resigning as an MP at the 2010 election on the grounds of his age, he stood once more as a candidate for Bristol city council, and he and a sitting Tory councillor both secured an identical total of votes. After three recounts confirming the dead heat, both names were put into the ballot box for a lucky dip draw and Naysmith won. He remained a councillor until 2014 and retired as an honorary alderman.
In 1966, he married Caroline Hill, a general practitioner, from whom he subsequently separated. He is survived by her and their two children, Stephen and Catherine.
• (John) Douglas Naysmith, immunologist and politician; born 1 April 1941; died 2 July 2023
