Spellar was born in Bromley and educated at Dulwich College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

[1] Spellar was the Political Officer of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU) from 1969 to 1992,[2] and was a speech-writer for general secretaries Frank Chapple and Eric Hammond.

[1] Spellar returned to the House of Commons in the 1992 general election becoming the MP for Warley West with a majority of 5,472, and was appointed an opposition whip.

[4] He left the front benches in 2005, but in 2008, he rejoined the government as a whip (Comptroller of the Household) and served until Labour entered opposition in May 2010.

[citation needed] In November 2015, Spellar he suggested that Jeremy Corbyn should resign as Labour leader over the question of whether to conduct air strikes on ISIL in Syria.

[6] In November 2017, Spellar was appointed as a member of the UK parliament delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

[7] In March 2019, Spellar was one of 21 MPs—and the only Labour MP—to vote against LGBTQ-inclusive sex and relationships education in English schools.