Peter Doig (politician)

Peter Doig
Member of Parliament
for Dundee West
In office
21 November 1963 – 7 April 1979
Preceded by John Strachey
Succeeded by Ernie Ross
Personal details
Born 27 October 1911
Died 31 October 1996 (aged 85)
Nationality British
Political party Labour

Peter Muir Doig (27 October 1911 – 31 October 1996) was a British Labour Party politician.

Doig was educated at Blackness School, Dundee, before taking evening classes. He later became a sales supervisor. He joined the Labour Party in 1930. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Air Force. He was elected a Dundee town councillor for ten years, serving as honorary town treasurer.

Doig contested Aberdeen South in 1959. He was Member of Parliament for Dundee West from a 1963 by-election to 1979, preceding Ernie Ross. On 22 September 1963, Doig was chosen ahead of five other people to be the Labour Party candidate in the by-election. At the time he was a bakery supervisor and chairman of the Labour group on Dundee Town Council. He was also deputy chairman of the council.

In 1966 Doig was recorded as a member of the Transport and General Workers Union and the Co-operative Society. He was married with two sons.

In the 1970s Doig was one of a small number of Labour MPs who supported the restoration of capital punishment, and was reported to favour a "hard line" approach towards crime. In 1979, when chairing the Scottish Standing Committee of MPs he used his casting vote to support a Conservative proposal to give police in Scotland wider powers to search for offensive weapons.