Harry Harpham
Miner who worked for David Blunkett and became an MP
HARRY HARPHAM, who has died aged 61, was Labour MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough for just nine months before succumbing to cancer; at last May’s election he succeeded the former home secretary David Blunkett, whose constituency agent he had been for more than 20 years.
A lifelong socialist – and in his youth an antiapartheid campaigner and member of CND – Harpham maintained that “working people have never been handed change. They’ve had to fight for it.”
Harpham moved to Sheffield from the Nottinghamshire coalfield after the strike of 1983-84, eventually becoming deputy leader of the city council. An NUM loyalist, he had stayed out for a year while most Notts miners worked on in protest against Arthur Scargill refusing to call a national ballot.
Harpham – who backed Andy Burnham for the Labour leadership – recently told Jeremy Corbyn that despite the hardship, he “would have done it all again”. When Baroness Thatcher died, he posted on social media a photo of himself raising a pint glass in celebration.
Taking his seat in the Commons, Harpham said: “I will be the last deep coal miner ever elected to this place. There will be no more to follow me, because there will be no more pits.”
Harpham established himself as a popular and hard-working MP. He was a member of the environment, food and rural affairs select committee, and PPS to the shadow energy secretary Lisa Nandy.
Diagnosed with cancer after last September’s party conference, he said the intensive treatment he underwent gave him a new respect for the NHS. He told his local paper he “didn’t want to make a song and dance about it”, and kept up a heavy constituency workload.
As recently as January 20, Harpham challenged David Cameron in the House over job losses at Sheffield Forgemasters, telling him: “We have had lots of warm words and hand-wringing and some crocodile tears from yourself and ministers in this Chamber about the tsunami of job losses across the steel industry. Can you tell me when you will actually do something?”
Days later, he fired off
a broadside against the Department of Business closing its office in Sheffield, with the loss of 247 jobs. He commented: “George Osborne talks about a Northern powerhouse, but actions speak louder than words.”
Robert Harry Harpham was born in Mansfield on February 21 1954. He left school at 16, and the following Monday “put on a hard hat and went down the pit”. A co-worker lent him Robert Tressell’s The Ragged-Trousered
Philanthropists; he quickly became active in the NUM, and joined the Labour Party.
Early in 1983, Scargill called his members out over pit closures, splitting the workforce in Nottinghamshire – and their NUM representatives – down the middle. Harpham stayed out to the end, but with recriminations continuing between miners who had worked and struck, he left the pit in 1985 and moved to Sheffield. He enrolled as a mature student at Northern College, then took a degree course at Sheffield University, graduating in 1991.
In 1993 he went to work for Blunkett, then in 2000 was elected to Sheffield City Council. He was Cabinet member in turn for Children’s Services, Streetscene and Waste Management and Homes and Neighbourhoods, and from 2012 deputy leader of the council.
Harpham led a deputation to Downing Street to secure £500 million for the city’s schools, established the council as a living wage employer and oversaw a revival in council housing.
After Blunkett decided to stand down, Harpham was selected to fight Brightside and Hillsborough.
He is survived by his wife Gill, their two sons and three daughters. Harry Harpham, born February 21 1954, died February 4 2016