Reg Prentice, Baron Prentice : biography

Reginald Ernest Prentice, Baron Prentice, PC (16 July 1923, Croydon – 18 January 2001, Mildenhall, Wiltshire) was a British politician who held ministerial office in both Labour and Conservative Party governments. He is the most senior Labour figure ever to defect to the Conservative party.

Education and war service

Reg Prentice was educated at Whitgift School in South Croydon, South London, then at the London School of Economics. He served in Austria and Italy during the Second World War.

Archives

• at the of the London School of Economics.

Early politics

He joined the staff of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) in 1950.

Prentice was a councillor for Whitehorse Manor in the then-County Borough of Croydon from 1949, having stood unsuccessfully in Thornton Heath ward in 1947. He served on the Housing, Libraries, Planning & Development, Water and Reconstruction Committees.

He first stood, unsuccessfully, for parliament in Croydon North in 1950 and 1951, then Streatham in 1955. As Labour Member of Parliament from 1957 for East Ham North, later Newham North East, he was a minister of state in Harold Wilson’s first government at Education and Science (1964–1966), then as Minister of Public Buildings and Works (1966–1967), and finally was put in charge of the still-new Ministry of Overseas Development (1967–1969).

When Labour regained power, he was Secretary of State for Education and Science between 1974 and 1975, subsequently becoming Minister for Overseas Development with a seat in the cabinet until 1976.

In 1976, he was deselected by his Constituency Labour Party. He appealed unsuccessfully for the National Executive Committee to overturn their endorsement of his deselection from the rostrum of the Labour Party Conference.

Switch of party

In 1977, Prentice left the Labour Party after a series of battles with left-wing constituency activists such as Owen Ashworth and joined the Conservative Party.

He was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Daventry in the 1979 general election. Lady Hesketh was instrumental in him standing for Daventry. He was a Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Security in Margaret Thatcher’s government between 1979 and 1981. He left the government owing to ill health He was knighted in 1987, the year he stepped down as an MP. In 1992, he was raised to the Peerage as Baron Prentice, of Daventry in the County of Northamptonshire.