NORMAN Hogg was a Labour MP for what was then called East Dunbartonshire, later Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, during the party's difficult years of partial eclipse by the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher. He was his party's deputy chief whip in the H
ouse of Commons from 1983-87 and took the title Baron Hogg of Cumbernauld when he was granted a life peerage during Tony Blair's administration in 1997.
Described by his fellow peers as "genial and self-effacing", Lord Hogg also served from 2002-04 as deputy speaker in the House of Lords and as chairman of the Scottish Peers' Association from the same year. More importantly to him, he said, he was a longtime elder of the Church of Scotland and was honoured to serve as a lord high commissioner to the Church's General Assembly in 1998-99.
He first came to national notice as a new MP in Westminster when, at the time bachelor Prince Charles was being linked romantically with Princess Marie-Astrid of Luxembourg, a Roman Catholic, he proposed amending the 1700 Act of Settlement, which barred anyone who "professes the popish religion" from being monarch or marrying into the monarchy. The law, he said, was "discriminatory, offensive and insulting to the Catholic community of the United Kingdom".
Norman Hogg was born in Aberdeen in 1938. His father, also Norman, would later become the Granite City's lord provost. Young Norman went to Causewayend primary school in the city, then Ruthrieston Secondary, before landing a job with Aberdeen's town council at the age of 16.
He was with the council for nearly 15 years, after which he was appointed to represent Scotland as district officer in the National and Local Government Officers' Association (Nalgo), the union which represented government workers and has since become part of Unison.
Always a staunch Labourite, he held numerous positions in which he sought to improve the lot of the Scottish working man and woman, not least in his native North-east.
For a time he served as a Scottish representative on the Transport Users' Consultative Committee, set up by the Ministry of Transport to improve the lot of British commuters, particularly rail travellers. He was also secretary of the Trade Unions Committee of the Electricity Supply Industry in Scotland before running successfully as Labour MP for East Dunbartonshire in 1979, defeating the SNP's Margaret Bain.
With Mrs Thatcher swept to power in the same general election, Hogg's role as deputy chief whip for the opposition in the House of Commons was particularly important. Fellow MPs said his forceful expression of Labour ideals, blended with a mischievous sense of humour, was often crucial in getting his fellow MPs out of bed, or out of the bar, to participate in key votes in the chamber.
"Norman was a significant figure in keeping the parliamentary party together in those times," according to former Labour MP Tam Dalyell.
During his first three years in the Commons, from 1979-82, he was a member of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, a role he relished. He was named Labour's Scottish whip in 1982, and promoted to deputy chief whip in Westminster the following year.
When he stood down as an MP in 1997, and was named a peer, he was succeeded in his Cumbernauld and Kilsyth constituency by Rosemary McKenna, who said yesterday: "Norman's death will sadden a lot of people who saw in him a good friend, a very able politician and a fine trade unionist. The Labour and trade union movements have lost a very special man."
In the House of Lords, Baron Hogg became perhaps best-known for two causes which could hardly have been more different. He was an outspoken supporter of the state of Israel – as an MP he had been a member of the all-party group on Anglo-Israeli relations – and an equally outspoken supporter of better bus services in Scotland and around the UK. From 1998, he was chairman of the Bus Appeals Body, which mediates between bus companies and often-aggrieved passengers.
Last year, when he had already been diagnosed with cancer, Lord Hogg and several fellow peers were embarrassed by media revelations that they had given parliamentary staff security passes to lobbyists with a financial interest. Lord Hogg said he had provided a pass to an official of the Confederation of Passenger Transport, which at the time was paying him a consultancy fee of £3,000 a year. But he said he had done so purely in the interests of British Transport users and saw no conflict of interest. It emerged that handing out such passes was common procedure among peers.
Before his illness, Lord Hogg was known in the Lords for questioning the safety of stretch limousines and the capabilities of their drivers, particularly in the case of children taken out in such vehicles for birthday parties.
He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth.
The full article contains 843 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
