Rayner to speak at funeral of town MP
Deputy Labour leader set to deliver one of the eulogies in memory of Sir Tony Lloyd
DEPUTY Labour leader Angela Rayner will deliver one of the eulogies at Sir Tony Lloyd’s funeral next week.
Family, friends and former colleagues from Parliament will bid a final farewell to the late MP for Rochdale on February 16.
Sir Tony, who died last month after revealing that he was suffering from an incurable form of leukaemia, held several political posts across Greater Manchester over the last 45 years. All Labour MPS in Greater Manchester are expected to attend his funeral which is taking place at St Hugh of Lincoln RC Church in Stretford where he was born in 1950.
Ms Rayner, who is the MP for Ashton-under-lyne, will deliver one of the eulogies at the service, Sir Tony’s office has confirmed. The late MP’S office has also said that political colleagues ‘from across Parliament’ will be in attendance.
The Labour stalwart joined the party at the age of 16. After studying mathematics at the University of Nottingham, he returned to Greater Manchester before becoming a lecturer in business studies at the University of Salford.
In 1979, he became councillor for the Clifton ward on Trafford council and rose through the ranks to become deputy leader, before being elected as Stretford’s Member of Parliament in 1983.
In 1997, following boundary changes which abolished the Stretford constituency, he won the Manchester Central seat which he represented for 15 years.
During his first stint in Parliament, he served in the whips’ office and became the party’s spokesperson on transport, employment, education and finally served as the deputy spokesperson for foreign affairs. In 1997, when Labour won a landslide victory, Prime Minister Tony Blair made him minister of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
He chaired the Parliamentary Labour Party between 2006 and 2012 before leaving Parliament to become Greater Manchester’s first police and crime commissioner. This role was later subsumed into the position of metro mayor.
Sir Tony was elected by the leaders of the ten local authorities of Greater Manchester to become the interim mayor. But he was defeated by Andy Burnham who was selected as Labour’s candidate in the first mayoral election in 2017.
He returned to Parliament in 2017 when he became the MP for Rochdale, beating incumbent Simon Danczuk who was kicked out of the Labour Party and stood as an independent. He retained the seat in the 2019 general election.
Tributes to the veteran politician flooded in following his sudden death on January 17, including from former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Belarussian politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Rochdale Football Club. A minute’s silence was held in the House of Commons the following morning and MPS paid tribute to him the week after.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak led the tributes in Parliament, hailing Sir Tony as a ‘great man of Manchester’. House of Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle described his former colleague as ‘one of the nicest, most effective MPS.’
Addressing Sir Tony’s family who were watching from the chamber, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “I hope they can take some comfort in the memories and tributes of colleagues today, and I hope they see just how much Tony was loved and respected here in this House and how much he managed to achieve in his decades of public service.”
Requiem mass will be offered at St Hugh of Lincoln RC Church in Stretford at 12pm on February 16. No flowers are requested but donations may be sent in Sir Tony’s memory to Blood Cancer UK, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and UNICEF UK.