York Central MP Hugh Bayley will be standing down at the next election. He spoke to STEPHEN LEWIS.

POLITICS, says Hugh Bayley, is like walking up a sand dune. "You're trying to move ahead, and there are forces constantly pushing society in the opposite direction."

You might be forgiven for thinking York Central's Labour MP sounds a little weary. He did, after all, recently announce that he won't be standing for re-election next year. But he doesn't seem weary when we meet in his constituency office in Holgate Road. Just... accepting.

We've been discussing that famous Enoch Powell quote about all political careers being doomed to end in failure.

When he was first elected York MP in 1992, Mr Bayley admits, he wanted to change the world. The British economy was in poor shape, there was little job security, and the welfare system was struggling. "People had suffered enormously, poverty had trebled, and I wanted to do something about it."

Fast forward to 2014 and... well, not much seems to have changed. We've just been through the worst recession since the war; the much-vaunted economic recovery isn't reaching those at the bottom; welfare has been cut; child poverty is rising again; and the gap between the haves and the have nots is wider than it has been for years.

If Mr Bayley wanted to change the world... well, he's failed, hasn't he?

Your ambition changes over time, he admits. "It would be naive to think you can do everything. Politicians face a forever moving target. I see politics as a process... as a way of changing circumstances to move from a bad place to a better place.

"Some say you make terrible compromises along the way. But if it gets you to a better place, it's worth making those compromises.

"You can't afford to be a purist. Sometimes you have the perfect answer, but you haven't got the political power to overcome all the obstacles."

That's an astute analysis of the reality of political life, from a politician who may never quite have set Westminster alight, but who has nevertheless been a good constituency MP, and more.

York Press:
Hugh presents a petition from the people of York to the House of Commons urging the Government to ensure the National Railway Museum remained open 

Nowhere in Mr Bayley's career was the need to make compromises better demonstrated than in his 2003 vote in favour of war with Iraq.

In a piece written for The Press a year later, he wrote of the 'heavy heart' with which he supported war.

A Press correspondent had written of the 8,000 Iraqi civilians who had lost their lives in the year since the war began.

"If this figure is correct it shows the terrible cost of the war for 8,000 Iraqis and their families," Mr Bayley wrote. "But this is less than the 60,000 families who would have lost children had Saddam's regime ruled for another 12 months.

"I had to decide which was the lesser of two evils – the humanitarian consequences of war, or the humanitarian consequences of appeasing a brutal dictator such as Saddam."

It was a decision that clearly weighed heavy. Some constituents have never forgiven him.

"Mixed feelings," commented one reader on our website after the announcement he was to stand down. "One the one hand, he's done a superb job when members of my family have needed help – on each occasion he's gone in to bat for them at the highest level and got results. On the other hand I can't help seeing him as 'Bomber Bayley'."

"A decent, hard-working constituency MP but some people never forgave him for his U-turn on the Iraq war.., voting to attack in spite of there not being a second UN resolution," added another commenter.

York Press:
Hugh with apprentice chefs at  Churchill Hotel

Mr Bayley was first elected as York MP in 1992, defeating the sitting Tory MP Conal Gregory – by whom he had himself been beaten in1987.

He was born in Berkshire, did his first degree – in politics, naturally – at Bristol University, and then a postgraduate degree at York.

For seven years he worked for the NALGO trades union, negotiating pay and conditions for nurses, paramedics and other health staff.

He left NALGO in 1982 to set up the International Broadcasting Trust, making TV films about the environment and international development, then returned to the University of York, first as a lecturer in social policy and later as a research fellow in health economics.

Adopted as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for York in the 1980s, he lost to Conal Gregory in 1987 before winning five years later.

He never expected his tenure as an MP to be as long as it has been, he admits. York tended to swing from Labour to Tory and back again

"It had been a kind of pendulum seat, sometimes for ten years, sometimes for 12 years. I imagined I would have that kind of platform."

So is he satisfied with what he's achieved over the last 22 years? In York, he will probably be remembered mainly for his constituency work. But he has held some high-profile roles, too.

Following Labour's 'new dawn' in 1997 he was briefly a member of Tony Blair's government, as junior social security minister. He was given the thankless job of helping to pilot the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill through the Commons – something of a poisoned chalice. It was little surprise that after the 2001 election he found himself on the backbenches again.

During his long Parliamentary career he was also, for two years (2012 until recently) President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly; a member of the Commons International Development Committee; and – briefly in 2010 while permanent deputy speakers were elected – acting Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons.

What he seems most proud of, however, is the work he did behind the scenes helping to change the law on everything from tobacco advertising to the use of international aid.

In the early 1990s, he introduced a private members bill calling for tobacco advertising to be banned. It failed, but after Labour swept to power in 1997, tobacco advertising was indeed banned.

In 1995, he raised the issue of the use of British aid as a 'sweetener' to help secure British exports and overseas contracts. Again, when Labour came to power, the law was changed to make such 'tied aid' illegal.

And as a parliamentary assistant to health Secretary Frank Dobson, he helped pave the way for the creation of NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, a panel of experts which rules on whether new medicines are effective and value for money and so should be available on the NHS.

He may not have changed the world, but he's at least made his own small mark on it. And he hasn't finished yet, he says. He still has five months to go. And he has ideas for ending the postcode health lottery, and for creating an English parliament and scrapping the House of Lords. The best may yet be to come...


Hugh's views on...

MPs expenses

The 2009 scandal over MPs expenses did “huge damage” to public confidence in politicians, he says. He himself came out of it relatively unscathed. He was one of the first MPs to publish his expenses in full.

There were no claims for duck houses or moat cleaning, although he did claim £400 a month for food (that covered the cost of eating out and entertaining, a necessary part of an MP’s job, he said).

In all, the receipts he published on his website revealed he claimed a total of £163,619 in expenses the year before, on top of his basic £60,000 salary. That included more than £91,000 for staff costs, £13,472 for travel – and £23,000 in ‘second home allowance’.

Like so many MPs, he has two homes, one in his constituency of York, one in London. Mortgage ‘flipping’ between constituency and London homes was one of the issues that inflamed voters most.

Mr Bayley switched the designation of his second home only once, he says: and that was under instruction, when he became a junior minister. “As a minister you were required to make your primary house your address in London.”


Labour’s all-women shortlist for his York seat

When he first became an MP in 1992, there were perhaps 20 or 30 women in Parliament out of 650 MPs. “There wasn’t a female voice or presence in the House, no proper women’s perspective.”

Labour introduced a rule that 50 per cent of seats where it had ‘high hopes of winning’ would have all-women shortlists. As a result, 101 Labour women MPs were elected in 1997. “That created an absolute sea-change in the House of Commons. It changed the whole culture of Parliament.”

There is no evidence that women-only shortlists leads to second-rate candidates, he says. “The Labour Party in York will find a first-class candidate.”


An English Parliament

There must be a proper constitutional convention to decide the best way to give the English regions more voice following the Scottish referendum, Mr Bayley says.

He believes it should be possible to set up an English parliament without creating a wasteful extra tier of government.

The solution is to scrap the House of Lords at the same time. “I would propose that, say, three weeks out of four, the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish bodies would meet as legislatures for their respective nations, but periodically, say one week a month, meet together as a second (UK wide) national revising chamber to revise legislation from the House of Commons.”


UKIP

“They are a protest party. They did well in Europe five years ago, and in the following general election went absolutely nowhere.”


Retirement

He decided only recently not to stand for election next year. So he hasn’t decided what he will do after next May. “I’ll be staying in York. Fenella [his wife] is here. I’ll need to work out some way to use my time constructively, drawing on the experience I have gained.”