Barry Seal obituary: The former Labour MEP who built his own sports car and bred horses
Barry Seal, who has died at 87, was a long-serving former Euro MP for West Yorkshire. He won the seat for Labour in 1979, in the first direct elections to the European Parliament, and stayed for 20 years.
He had previously served on Bradford Council for eight years, including a time as leader of the Labour Group.
In Brussels he was leader of the Labour MEP group for a year in 1988, and served terms as chair of the Economic and Monetary Committee and President of the parliament’s delegation to the USA.
As MEP, he won grant aid from the European Economic Community’s regional fund to help with the £2.4m cost of converting the interior of Bradford’s Wardley House, part of which was to form the National Film and Photography Museum, and helped secure EU funding to refurbish the city’s Alhambra Theatre and the Square Chapel in Halifax.
In the 1999 Euro elections, following the abolition of several single-member constituencies, he stood for the Yorkshire and Humber seat.
A keen advocate for the NHS, in 2002 he became chairman of Kirklees Primary Care Trust and in 2007 chairman of Bradford District Care Trust and then chair of Age UK in Leeds.
Barry Seal was born in Halifax, educated at Heath Grammar and went on to study for his PhD in control engineering at Bradford University.
He later attended the European Business School in Fontainebleau and worked as a chemical engineer for ICI, then as a computer consultant and lecturer at Huddersfield Polytechnic.
He was married for 62 years to Frances and they lived most of their lives in Bradford.
In his spare time he built his own sports car from a kit, obtained his light aircraft pilot’s license and bred horses.
He is survived by Frances and by two children and two granddaughters.