Roy Mason, Baron Mason of Barnsley, (18 April 1924 – 19 April 2015), was a British Labour Party politician and Cabinet minister who was Secretary of State for Defence and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Early life He was born in Royston, West Riding of Yorkshire, on 18 April 1924, and grew up in Carlton, Barnsley, also in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Mason first went down the mines at the age of fourteen and he became a branch official of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in his early twenties. Aged 26, he studied at the London School of Economics as a mature student on a Trades Union Congress (TUC) scholarship. He remained in the coal industry until he was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Barnsley constituency at a by-election in 1953. Posts Mason was Labour Party spokesman on Home Affairs, Defence and the Post Office, 1960–1964. Minister of State at the Board of Trade, 1964–1967. Minister of Defence (Equipment), 1967–1968. Minister of Power, 1968–1969. President of the Board of Trade, 1969–1970. Secretary of State for Defence, 1974–1976. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, 1976–1979 Northern Ireland A high-profile politician, Mason's appointment to Northern Ireland was unexpected and seemed to indicate a tougher response from the British Government than had been pursued by his predecessor, Merlyn Rees. In late 1976, he told the Labour Party conference that "Ulster had had enough of initiatives, White Papers and legislation for the time being, and now needed to be governed firmly and fairly". He rejected both military and political solutions in favour of "justice for all; with equality before the law; and, crucially, with republican terrorism treated as a security problem, and nothing else". While Secretary of State for Defence, Mason had been responsible for the introduction of SAS units into the 'bandit country' of South Armagh. At Stormont Mason was responsible for the tougher role taken by the security forces and authorised an increase in British Army covert tactics with the SAS allowed to operate throughout Northern Ireland. Mason's time in Northern Ireland was characterised by a reduction in violence; "in 1976 there were 297 deaths in Northern Ireland; in the next three years the figures were 111, 80, 120. In 1977, he stood up to militant loyalists attempting to repeat their successful Ulster Workers Council strike tactic of 1974. The same year, he