Andrew McIntosh

It is with some trepidation that I write about Andrew McIntosh, Labour peer and member of the Greater London Council, who died at the end of August.  He achieved much during his time in public life and will, I believe, be remembered as a leading light in London Labour politics.

 One of his less remembered but important contributions was his work on the 2005 Gambling Act in his capacity as a Minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

 John Carr, one of Andrew’s GLC colleagues,  writes about this in today’s Guardian. Andrew was, in fact, very successful in this matter. Since the legislation became operative, children’s organisations are not aware of a single instance where a child has managed to evade the system.     

 I first met Andrew when I worked at County Hall in the late 1970s. I remember him as a friendly and approachable GLC Member, even though at the time we were in different Labour Party camps.  Then, as now, I was on the side of Ken Livingstone and supported Ken on the London Labour Party Executive where I was a member for much of the 1980s.     

 After Ken Livingstone became Leader of the Greater London in 1981, Andrew went on to serve in the House of Lords for nearly 30 years. He was Labour frontbench spokesperson variously on education, industry and the environment, rising to be deputy leader of the opposition in the Lords (1992-97). After 1997 Andrew became deputy chief whip in the Lords, speaking for those many departments with no Lords minister of their own until, in 2005, he gained ministerial office in the DCMS.

 Of particular interest to me as an MEP is the fact that Andrew was a member of the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly from 2005 and chair of its education and media subcommittee from 2008 until his death. He was very well regarded, a formidable chair, and in January 2007 the Council appointed him its rapporteur on media freedom. He also worked to advance the Bologna Process, designed to ease the movement of university students and staff around Europe, something I deal with in my role on the European Parliament Culture and Education Committee.

He was, in addition, an honorary associate of the National Secular Society, a distinguished supporter of the British Humanist Association and a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary humanist group.