Tommy McAvoy, Lord McAvoy, who has died aged 80, was a working-class Labour politician with a strong Catholic faith who probably had more personal encounters with Queen Elizabeth II than any other parliamentarian during the course of Tony Blair’s governments.
His contacts with the Queen were due to his role as comptroller of the household, the third highest rank in the government whips’ office, which meant he had to report to her each week on parliamentary business. As in everything, McAvoy was extremely discreet about his regular royal encounters. The most he was ever heard to say was that they “talked about normal things, like family”.
When Gordon Brown took over from Blair, McAvoy was promoted within the whips’ office to treasurer of the household, having to carry a white staff on state occasions, and went on to become the longest serving government whip in history, with a stint of 13 years. Apart from Brown, he was also the only Labour MP to hold the same position throughout Blair’s three terms in office.
Throughout the Blair era Labour had huge majorities in the House of Commons, and McAvoy, who combined affability with a sharp mind and long memory, was well suited to the job of keeping the troops in order. He was a straightforward Labour loyalist, schooled in the trade union movement, who expected the same standards from others as he set himself – and was quietly effective in securing them. Most Labour MPs respected his fairness.
Born into a Catholic household in the ancient burgh of Rutherglen (now in South Lanarkshire), to Edward McAvoy, a steelworker’s labourer, and Frances (nee McLaughlin), Tommy and his two siblings were brought up by his mother after his parents separated when he was young.
In later life, he often stressed that these circumstances had given him the incentive to overcome odds, and held the firm view that early adversity should not be used as justification for subsequent failings.
In the Burnhill area of Rutherglen he grew up in the same street as his friend Bobby Murdoch, who would go on to play football for Celtic when they became the first British club to win the European Cup, in 1967. It remained a matter of pride to McAvoy that the two of them had played in the same St Columbkille primary school team that won the Glasgow Schools Cup. Later he went on to Our Lady’s high school in Motherwell.
He was loyal to his roots and Rutherglen’s distinctive identity from the neighbouring city of Glasgow. When an aggrieved backbencher addressed him as “a Glasgow thug”, McAvoy calmly pointed out that he was from Rutherglen. As an MP he argued successfully against his home town being included within the Glasgow boundaries in the local government reforms of 1994.
His early jobs, in a pawnbroker’s shop and a grocery store, did not last long because they interfered with his Saturday commitment to watching Celtic. He moved on to work as a storeman for Hoover, a vast industrial employer in nearby Cambuslang that made vacuum cleaners.
His work there took him into trade union involvement through the Amalgamated Engineering Union (later part of Unite), for whom he became a shop steward.
Later, while still working at Hoover, he served as chair of Rutherglen community council before becoming a Labour councillor for the Strathclyde region in 1982. When the sitting member for the Rutherglen parliamentary constituency, Gregor Mackenzie, retired, he succeeded him in 1987 as a Labour and Co-operative party MP. Widely liked and respected in the area, his vote share never fell below 55% in the five general elections he contested.
In his maiden speech McAvoy said he represented industrial communities “that reflect traditional values” and he condemned “the damage done to the social fabric by unemployment”. This was soon to worsen in his own constituency as Hoover, which at one point had employed more than 5,000 people, gradually withdrew from the area altogether, in spite of McAvoy’s best efforts.
In the periods when he could speak in the Commons – whips are normally prevented from doing so – McAvoy held forth authoritatively not just on constituency matters but on Northern Ireland, from where his grandparents hailed. His constructive political style was focused on outcomes rather than headlines, except possibly in relation to his local Rutherglen Reformer newspaper.
When Labour lost power in 2010 he went to the House of Lords as a “speaking whip”, which allowed him the freedom to be a front bench spokesman on Scotland and Northern Ireland. He became chief whip in 2018 and stood down in 2021. The following year he was knighted in recognition of his public service.
He married Eleanor Kerr – who had lived six doors down from him in his childhood – in 1968. She survives him, along with their four sons, Michael, Steven, Brian and Thomas.
• Tommy McLaughlin McAvoy, Lord McAvoy, politician, born 14 December 1943; died 8 March 2024
