Fred Peart, Baron Peart

Infobox Minister
honorific-prefix = The Right Honourable
name = The Lord Peart
honorific-suffix =
PC


imagesize = 150px
office = Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food
term_start = 18th October 1964
term_end= 6th April 1968
primeminister = Harold Wilson
predecessor = Christopher Soames
successor= Cledwyn Hughes
term_start2 = 5th March 1974
term_end2 = 10th September 1976
primeminister2=Harold Wilson
James Callaghan
predecessor2 =Joseph Godber
successor2 = John Silkin
office3=Lord Privy Seal
term_start3=6th April
term_end3=1st November 1968
primeminister3=Harold Wilson
predecessor3=The Lord Shackleton
successor3=The Lord Shackleton
office4 = Leader of the House of Commons
&
Lord President of the Council
primeminister4=Harold Wilson
term_start4 = 1st November 1968
term_end4 = 20th June 1970
predecessor4 = Richard Crossman
successor4 = Willie Whitelaw
office5=Leader of the House of Lords
&
Lord Privy Seal
primeminister5=James Callaghan
term_start5=10th September 1976
term_end5=4th May 1979
predecessor5=The Lord Shepherd
successor5=The Lord Soames (as Leader of the House of Lords)
Sir Ian Gilmour, Bart. (as Lord Privy Seal)
birth_date = Birth date|1914|04|30|df=yes
death_date = Death date and age|1988|08|26|1914|04|30|df=yes
nationality = British
party = Labour

Thomas Frederick "Fred" Peart, Baron Peart, PC (30 April 1914 – 26 August 1988) was a British Labour politician who served in the Labour governments of the 1960s and 1970s and was a candidate for Deputy Leader of the Party.

Peart qualified as a teacher at the University of Durham in 1936. He served in World War II, gaining the rank of Captain.

Peart was elected Member of Parliament for Workington in 1945, serving until 1976. He initially served as PPS to the Minister of Agriculture & Fisheries (Tom Williams.

Peart, along with the rest of the Labour Party, went into opposition after Sir Winston Churchill's 1951 election victory. In 1964, he returned to government after Harold Wilson defeated Sir Alec Douglas-Home at that year's election. He was appointed to the Cabinet holding the position Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, a senior one. His tenure saw advances in pay for agricultural labourers, and in technology.In 1968 Peart became Lord Privy Seal, with no particular responsibilities. This was because it suited Wilson to remove him from the Cabinet, but he wanted to keep him in the Cabinet. When the then Leader of the House of Commons was moved seven months later, Peart became Leader of the House of Commons, taking the subsidiary title Lord President of the Council. After Labour lost the 1970 election, Peart returned to opposition.When Labour returned to power, Peart became Agriculture Minister once more.

Not long after Wilson stood down in 1976, Peart was made a life peer in 1976 as Baron Peart, of Workington in the County of Cumbria, serving as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal at a time when the Labour faction in the Lords was tiny compared to the vast Tory majority, mainly composed of hereditary peers, led by the elegant Lord Carrington, a hereditary peer, and Lord Soames, who although only a newly-created life peer was Churchill's son-in-law, and hence a member of the Spencer-Churchill-Vanderbilt family, one of England's and America's grandest aristocratic families. This was odd territory for a working-class man like Peart, but he handled the affairs of the Lords competently.

After Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 election, Peart went into opposition once again.

Lord Peart died in 1988.