Description

Admin History:

Barry Sheerman was born on 17 August 1940 in Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex. He received a BSc from the London School of Economics in 1965 and an MSc from the University of London in 1967. He was a lecturer at the University of Wales, Swansea from 1966 until his election to parliament for the Labour Party in 1979. Sheerman represented Huddersfield East from 1979-83 and became MP for Huddersfield in 1983, a position he remains in today.

Sheerman has undertaken various Labour spokesperson roles; on education and employment between 1983 and 1988, for Home Affairs (as Shadow Deputy Home Secretary) from 1988-92, and for Disabled People's Rights from 1992-94. He was also a member of the criminal justice bill committee in the early 1990s, a member of the Cross-Party Advisory Group on Preparation for European Monetary Union and a member of the Liaison Committee (Commons) (Dec 1999-May 2010). From 2001 Sheerman has been Chair of the House of Commons Education and Skills select committee, which was renamed the Children, Schools and Families Committee in 2007. In June 2009, he called for a secret ballot of the Labour Party on whether Gordon Brown should continue as prime minister.

Sheerman is chairman of Policy Connect, a cross party, not-for-profit think tank based in London, which he helped to found. He also chairs the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety, an environmental charity called Urban Mines, the All-Party Parliamentary Carbon Monoxide Group and the National Educational Research and Development Trust. He also acts as a trustee of the National Children's Centre.

He married Pamela Elizabeth Brenchley in 1965 and they have four children.

Description:

Two thirds of this collection relates to the British Marxist, political theorist and author Harold Laski. It is largely made up of transcriptions of Laski letters, mainly to his wife Frida Laski, but also includes correspondence of Barry Sheerman connected to his research, memoirs of Laski family members, transcripts of interviews undertaken by Barry Sheerman and his research assistants, research notes taken from various archive collections, and copies of Laski manuscripts and articles by and about Laski.

The remaining third of the collection comprises loose papers concerning Sheerman's parliamentary responsibilities in the early 1990s, and mainly relates to amendments to the criminal justice bill.