Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, led tributes to the veteran Labour Party MP, Mr Roger Stott, who died on Sunday night.
Mr Stott (56), who had been ill for several weeks, was a Labour spokesman on Northern Ireland during the 1980s and early 1990s. He had been a member of the joint British-Irish parliamentary body.
Mr Prescott said yesterday: "Roger served the Labour Party well for many years . . . always with enthusiasm and commitment." The cause of Mr Stott's death was unclear. The former Merchant Navy seaman and telephone engineer entered the Commons at a by-election in Westhoughton in 1973, switching to nearby Wigan in 1983 after boundary changes.
He was spokesman on transport between 1980 and 1983, information technology between 1983 and 1988, trade and industry between 1988 and 1989 and Northern Ireland between 1989 and 1994.
He received the CBE in 1979.