After serving in both the Territorial Army and the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, Barber studied at Oxford and became a barrister.

During his term the economy suffered due to stagflation and industrial unrest, including a miners strike which led to the Three-Day Week.

This budget led to a brief period of growth known as "The Barber Boom," followed by a wage-price spiral and high inflation, culminating in the 1976 sterling crisis.

[3] He became an articled clerk in a solicitors' firm, but joined the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry shortly before the Second World War started.

He was commissioned into the Territorial Army Royal Artillery in 1939 and served in France with a unit from Doncaster as part of the British Expeditionary Force.

[3] On his return to England, he was awarded a state grant to Oxford University, where he took a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics in two years at Oriel College, and a scholarship to the Inner Temple.

He contested the seat again at the 1951 general election, however, and beat the incumbent Labour Member of Parliament, Raymond Gunter by 384 votes.

[3] His absence from Parliament was short-lived, as four months later he won a 1965 by-election in Altrincham and Sale caused by the elevation to the peerage of Frederick Erroll.

[3] After winning the election in 1970, Edward Heath appointed Barber as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and gave him the responsibility for negotiating the entry of the UK into the European Economic Community.

[3] However, following the sudden death of Iain Macleod on 20 July, only four weeks after the election, Barber became the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, although he was initially reluctant to take the job.

In line with the initial liberal instincts of Heath's 1970 government, he oversaw a major liberalisation of the banking system under the title of 'Competition and Credit Control', leading to a high level of lending, much of it to speculative property concerns.

[3] After a strike by the miners, and a Three-Day Week, Heath called for a general election on 28 February 1974 with the slogan "Who governs Britain?"

[3] He was made a life peer on 6 January 1975 as Baron Barber of Wentbridge in West Yorkshire,[8] and served as Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank from 1974 to 1987, where future Prime Minister John Major was his personal assistant.