Tony Blair leads tributes to Frank Field, ‘an independent thinker always pushing at the frontier of new ideas’ – UK politics live | Politics

Good morning. Tony Blair, the former Labour figure, has been among the many figures this morning paying tribute to Frank Field, the former Labour MP and campaigner against poverty, who has died at the age of 81, after a long illness.

Field was appointed minister for welfare reform when Blair became prime minister in 1997. It was a surprise appointment, because Field had not been a frontbencher and his proposals for welfare (often hard to place on a conventional left/right spectrum) were generally assumed to be too radical for his party. And so it proved; he clashed with Gordon Brown, the chancellor, and was out of office within about a year.

But Field is a good example of how politicians don’t have to be in government to make a difference. As director of the Child Poverty Action Group before he became an MP and as a backbencher, particularly as chair of the social security select committtee before Labour took power in 1997 and as a chair of the work and pensions select committee during the Brexit years, he had a huge influence on debates on welfare policy for decades.

And at a time when members of the public despair at the quality of MPs, he was a model of integrity and commitment to public: a person of deep faith, passionate and tireless when it came working on behalf of those, much liked, and capable of working with colleagues from all parties.

Blair said of him this morning.

Frank had integrity, intelligence and deep commitment to the causes he believed in.

He was an independent thinker, never constrained by conventional wisdom, but always pushing at the frontier of new ideas.

Even when we disagreed, I had the utmost respect for him as a colleague and a character.

Whether in his work on child poverty, or in his time devoted to the reform of our welfare system, he stood up and stood out for the passion and insight he brought to any subject.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons speaker, has also released this tribute.

As a former colleague, I watched in admiration as Frank Field navigated a career as a formidable MP, and as a minister, tasked with ‘thinking the unthinkable’ on social care.

He was neither cowed by the establishment or whips – which made his campaigns against hunger and food poverty, for climate change and the church, even more effective.

He was the driving force behind Parliament’s commitment to prevent slavery and human trafficking within our supply chains. Having worked with him on the modern slavery advisory group, and made him its chair, I am in no doubt his efforts saved many lives nationwide from this shameful criminal activity.

Suffice to say, he was one of a kind and he will be sorely missed.

I will post more tributes soon.

Here is the agenda for the day.

12pm: Oliver Dowden, deputy prime minister, faces Angela Rayner, deputy Labour leader, at PMQs.

12.45pm: Rishi Sunak holds a press conference in Berlin with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz.

After 12.45pm: MPs resume their debate on the renters (reform) bill.

And David Cameron, the foreign secretary, is flying to Kazakhstan as he continues his tour of Central Asia.

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