As the Wolverhampton MP Dennis Turner, he was a Labour whip and deeply committed to his roots in the Black Country
Given the elevated social status of many Labour MPs in recent years, it has often been said that one has to visit the House of Lords to find many of their working-class forebears. The former Wolverhampton MP Dennis Turner, who has died aged 71, was an excellent example. He had deep roots in his home area, representing it on the council and in parliament, and had worked on the shop floor and been an active trade unionist. He was given a life peerage in 2005.
Turner was inseparable, by birth, accent, manner and self-identification, from his beloved Black Country. "I'm a Black Country man and proud of it," he would say. Before becoming an MP he was already a prominent figure in his local party and the West Midlands.
In the Commons he applied a down-to-earth touch: as chairman of the catering committee he introduced chips to the menu; he often reminded MPs that he had once been a market trader and had run a social club. He introduced a private member's bill to legislate for the correct amount of froth to be at the top of a pint of beer. He also once chaired a committee to choose the best curry cook in England and a restaurant in Bilston won the award. When he visited the restaurant, though, he chose fish and chips, revealing he was not fond of curry. He liked a bet and once kept a greyhound called Division Belle.
Turner was on the left: he was pro-comprehensive schooling, hostile to any hint of privatising public services, and opposed to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Like Labour MPs today he decried government cuts to public services, the deprivation and high unemployment among his constituents, and the unfair squeeze on the budgets of less prosperous (usually Labour) local authorities. Wearing his heart on his sleeve, he once took a baby requiring a heart operation to 10 Downing Street, and shouted: "A little girl has come over 100 miles to see you, Mrs Thatcher."
He was born in Bradley, West Midlands, the son of Thomas Turner, a steelworker, and his wife, Mary. He attended secondary modern school in Bilston and lived there all his life. He was elected to Wolverhampton council at 24, eventually becoming deputy leader, and served on West Midlands county council between 1973 and 1986. In the two general elections of 1974, he fought and narrowly failed to win the Conservative seat of Halesowen and Stourbridge.
Turner became well known because of his role in trying to save the local British Steel works at Bilston, where his father had worked. The Labour government of James Callaghan wanted to close it and Turner chaired a trade union committee to oppose the plan and in 1978 to occupy the plant. It was closed, but Turner helped to obtain a reasonable deal for the area, concluding with the formation of a local Springvale sports and leisure centre. He was its chairman. In 1982 he began a five-year spell as a director of the West Midlands Enterprise Board, a body to encourage local enterprise. It was no surprise that with his high local profile as a defender of the area he was chosen for the safe seat of Wolverhampton South East, to succeed the Spanish civil war veteran Bob Edwards, and elected at the 1987 general election. For many years he had acted as Edwards's minder in the seat.
He found his calling as the West Midlands whip under John Smith and Tony Blair in the 1992 parliament. Although on the left, he was a Labour loyalist and had voted for each of them in the respective leadership elections of 1992 and 1994. His approach as a whip was along the lines: "If it's not too much trouble, do you think you could possibly…?" With an avuncular manner, shaking hands and draping an arm around the shoulder of MPs, he was effective.
His hopes of a government post in 1997 were dashed when Gordon Brown insisted on Bob Ainsworth, who was also a West Midlands MP, becoming a whip. Turner became parliamentary private secretary to Clare Short, the international development minister.
As Turner's health declined, he resigned as an MP shortly before the 2005 election – to be succeeded by Pat McFadden – and took a life peerage as Lord Bilston. But the title was a mistake. He wanted to be "Turner of Bilston" and yet he was introduced as "Lord Bilston of Bilston". In the Lords, he remained passionately Labour and was universally respected for his warmth and straightforwardness. He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Patricia, and their son, Brendon, and daughter, Jenny.
• Dennis Turner, Lord Bilston, politician, born 26 August 1942; died 25 February 2014