Michael Clapham was elected as MP for Barnsley West and Penistone at the (10 April) 1992 General Election following the retirement of Allen McKay, holding the seat for Labour with a majority of 14,504. He made his maiden speech, speaking on the concerns in the local coal mining industry, on 6 May 1992. In parliament Clapham was a left-wing politician and a member of the Socialist Campaign Group who often rebelled against the government on various issues.
During his time in government he was: a member of the Trade and Industry Committee (1992-1997 and again 2004-2007); Parliamentary Private Secretary to Alan Milburn, Minister of State at the Department of Health (1997); a member of the Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Committee (2007-2008) which then became the Business and Enterprise Committee (2008-2009) and finally the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee (2009-2010). During his parliamentary career he was also a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Chair of the All-Party Occupational Safety and Health Group, Chair of the All-Party Coal Fields Communities Group, Vice-Chair of the All-Party Fire Safety Group and a member of the North Atlantic Assembly.
Michael Clapham's work with the Department of Trade and Industry (which later became the Department for Business Innovation & Skills) heavily involved Coalclaims (Coal Health Claims) which is the collective name for two compensation schemes run by the government through the Department of Trade & Industry. These schemes exist to compensate coal miners and their families in relation to respiratory disease and Vibration white finger (VWF).
These records cover Michael Clapham's full parliamentary career from 1992 to 2010 and include correspondence, meeting minutes, reports, articles, research papers, statistics, presentations and memoranda that concern a very wide range of subjects and that reflect Clapham's day to day work in parliament. There are also very large sections of records that specifically relate to Michael Clapham's work on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee (and its predecessors), the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Occupational Safety and Health, and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
This collection will not be fully catalogued until Dec 2016. A basic catalogue structure and biography of Clapham have been provided to enable access to this collection until then. Please contact the Heritage Quay team if you would like to consult this archive further.