 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (December 2019) |
Reginald Yarnitz Freeson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of Parliament for Brent East Willesden East (1964–February 1974) | |
| In office 15 October 1964 – 18 May 1987 | |
| Preceded by | Trevor Skeet |
| Succeeded by | Ken Livingstone |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 24 February 1926 St Pancras, London, England |
| Died | 9 October 2006 (aged 80) Salisbury, Wiltshire, England |
| Political party | Labour |
Reginald Yarnitz Freeson (24 February 1926 – 9 October 2006) was a British Labour politician. He was a Member of Parliament for 23 years, from 1964 to 1987, for Willesden East and later Brent East, with 14 years on the front bench. He became a junior minister in the Ministry of Power in 1967, and then led his party on housing policy for 10 years, from 1969 to 1979, serving as Minister of State for Housing from 1969 to 1970 and then again from 1974 to 1979, and being his party's housing spokesman in the intervening period. He continued as health and social security spokesman until 1981. His soft-left opinions made him vulnerable to the hard left in the early 1980s, and he was deselected in 1985, leaving Parliament at the 1987 general election to be succeeded by hard-leftwinger and future London mayor Ken Livingstone.