Harold Macdonald Steward - Liverpool

Liverpool

Loyal to the government over the Suez crisis, Steward was a low-profile Member. He was part of a Parliamentary delegation to Jordan in 1958. In 1959, Steward made a speech on Liverpool Council urging the establishment of a development board to regenerate Merseyside which attracted national publicity; the Labour majority on the council were sceptical of the position and instead called on the United Kingdom government to provide additional aid. In 1960, as Deputy Leader of the Conservative group, he strongly opposed a motion by the Labour majority on the council to boycott goods from South Africa in protest at apartheid. He was elected as an Alderman in 1961; in the same year he chaired a conference on the effect of British membership of the Common Market on the North West economy.

Steward was chairman of the Planning Committee of Liverpool council in 1962. In January 1963, he was identified in a piece broadcast on BBC TV's "That Was The Week That Was" which named 13 MPs who had not spoken in the House of Commons since the previous general election. As with his constituency neighbour, Sir Norman Hulbert, he pleaded that making speeches was not the beginning and end of Parliamentary activity and he sought re-election in the 1964 general election; however, his marginal constituency fell to Labour.