Labour peer Lord Corbett of Castle Vale dies at 78

He was better known as Robin Corbett, a leading figure on the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee,

Lord Corbett, who had been suffering from cancer, served in several front-bench posts in Opposition.

Denis MacShane, Labour MP for Rotherham, said: “Robin Corbett was a young member of the National Union of Journalists Executive Committee and was a champion of journalist rights and freedoms in the Commons.

“Like many of his generation he spent his best years as an MP in opposition as the Labour Party made itself unelectable in the 1980s.

“A big, warm, reliable friend he was one of the best Labour MPs over many years and was active on his causes in the Lords.”

Lord Corbett was born in Fremantle, Australia, on December 22, 1933, and attended Holly Lodge Grammar School in Smethwick.

After his national service in the Royal Air Force in 1951, he became a journalist, first for the Birmingham Evening Mail and then for the Daily Mirror. In 1968 he became deputy editor of Farmers’ Weekly.

He was elected Labour MP for Hemel Hempstead at the October 1974 general election, but lost the seat in 1979. He returned to parliament in 1983, representing Birmingham Erdington. He held this seat until his retirement from the Commons at the 2001 general election.

He was opposition spokesman on Home Affairs (1979-1992), then for national heritage, broadcasting and Press until 1995. He was a Labour Party Whip from 1984 until 1987 and chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee from 1999 to 2001, when he became a life peer.

He was an active chairman of the all-party British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom and chairman of Friends of Cyprus.

A family source said: “Robin Corbett was the most formidable chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, chair of the All Party Penal Reform Group and chair for the last six years of the Labour peers’ group in the House of Lords.”

But perhaps more significant, say his family, was his life-long opposition to the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which encapsulated his passion for human rights in all spheres.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: “Humanity and decency were the watchwords of Robin Corbett’s long-standing chairmanship of the All Party Parliamentary Penal Affairs Group.”